Scientific Awakening A directional change in thinking

Scientific Awakening Definition: –Period of time when people began to define scientific method and apply it to search for truth

Basic Definitions Science: A process of understanding and organizing knowledge –Described nature Technology: A combination of skills and creativity which are mastered in their environment –Art and technology were identical

Scientific Awakening – Steps Merging science and technology –Technology previously independent of science Use of mathematics Use of experimentation and inductive reasoning Science separated from philosophy –Basic ancient truths were questioned –Focus on physics, not ethics and metaphysics History viewed as progressive

ScientistContributions CopernicusChallenged a basic theory GalileoLinked experiments and math BaconScientific Method DescartesTheoretical Science NewtonApplied laws to the universe LavoisierQuantification of experiments Scientific Awakening (Overview)

Earth Moon Mercury Motion of Mercury Ptolemy Model of the Universe

Tycho Brahe’s Model Earth not at center of circles

Copernicus Realized the earth turns on an axis Proposed a solar centered system –Book of Revolutions

Galileo Called the successor to Archimedes Study of pendulums

Galileo’s Contributions Linked science and math with observation Established math as language of science Engineering skills Manufacturing Music and art capabilities Optic developments –Founded modern astronomy Secularized science

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” - Galileo Galilei Galileo

Francis Bacon Court Chancellor Development of scientific method Died from pneumonia

"Method is like a pathway and if the pathway leads in the right direction, you will eventually get to the truth. [Bacon's pathway was induction combined with experimentation]... Genius [like Aristotle] is the ability to run quickly. However if a genius is on the wrong pathway, he will never be able to come to the truth since he will just move more quickly in the wrong direction." – Bacon

1.Sensory perception (empirical knowledge) more reliable in examining the world than pure logic or theology. 2.Manipulation of the world instead of just observation. 3.Principle of cause and effect accepted as inviolate. 4.Theory developed after experiments were interpreted. (Inductive reasoning given precedence over deductive reasoning.) 5.Interpretation of data to be unbiased. 6.Well supported and accepted theories become laws. Bacon’s Truths

Renè Descartes Foundations of analytical geometry Discourse on Method –Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) –Dualism (mind-body problem) Reductionism Banned by Catholic Church

Renè Descartes Results of Descartes philosophy –Basis of French science (theory) –Scrutiny of ancient philosophers –Excitement in scientific investigation

Descartes

Blaise Pascal Skeptic who recognized limits of empiricism –Pensées Converted to science by Descartes Strong experimentalist Discoveries perpetuate human progress Contributions

Isaac Newton The greatest scientist who ever lived Disinterested student Time at the farm Cambridge—professor of math Never married Manic depressive

Isaac Newton Avoided publishing findings due to criticism Principia Mathematica –Discovery of gravity –Greatest scientific work Discoveries in math and optics –Developed Calculus Introduced Modeling

“In the preceding books I have laid down the principles…[that] are the laws of certain motions, and power or forces…It remains that from the same principles I now demonstrate the frame of the System of the World.” - Newton Isaac Newton

“If I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” -Sir Isaac Newton Isaac Newton

Consequences of Scientific Revolution Community of scientists formed –Royal Society –Papers were read and published Scientists subjected to critical audience Science accepted as the preferred method of getting "truth"

Scientific Awakening DisciplinePhysicsMetaphysicalEthics PhilosophyLogicFormsSeek happiness TheologyRevelation Scriptures GodBe obedient ScienceEmpiricismSensory perceptions Inalienable rights AestheticsEmotionsBeauty and symmetry Unity with life

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. - Hebrews 11:1 Faith and Empiricism

Perfect (Spiritual) Knowledge Scientific (Empirical) Knowledge What is hoped for What is seen Faith

"Now man will at last measure the power of his mind on a true scale, and will realize that God, who founded everything in the world on the norm of quantity, also has endowed man with a mind which can comprehend these norms!" – Kepler

"Galileo's invention amounted to secularizing science, submerging the qualitative in favor of the quantitative as the earmark of truth, and elevating experimental checks from illustrations of the value of a theory to the test of its probability." – Gerald Holton, Einstein, History, and Other Passions Galileo

"Without a theory the facts are silent.“ – F. A. Hayek (Quoted in John Keegan, A History of Warfare, 1993, 6)

Bacon stated that he wanted to bring about “the true and lawful marriage of the empirical and rational faculties, the unkind and ill-starred separation of which has thrown into confusion all the affairs of the human family.” - Quoted in Stephen F. Mason A History of the Sciences

“If you start with certainties you will end in doubts, but if you begin with doubts, you will end in certainties.” - Sir Francis Bacon

“Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.” - Bacon

William Harvey Practiced vivisection –Advanced understanding of the heart –Text book on blood and circulation Attacked by followers of Galen Elected to Royal Academy