Shifting the Social Balance - Essay Example

Shifting the Social Balance The Scientific Revolution which evolved out of the Renaissance period thatswept through Europe into the 1600s is one of the most transformative periods known to history. It paved the way to an entirely new way of life as compared to lives lived during the Medieval period and led to new ways of thinking which have since been referred to as the Enlightenment. Following this great shift, science rather than religion or superstition now occupies the center of thought thanks to the knowledge gained during the 16th and 17th centuries of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment of the 18th. These two major periods of human development have shaped the ways in which the modern world thinks and how it goes about gaining new knowledge. This shift represents a major step in the development of civilization because it focuses on hard evidence, observable fact and verifiable conclusions. Science opened up the possibility of questioning long-held beliefs and examining them for truth while the Enlightenment made it possible to hold these debates in public, even refuting concepts that proved inaccurate. Revolutionary tools and ideas illustrate how the Scientific Revolution influenced society while the Enlightenment firmly established science and reason as the only logical standard on which to base worldly human thought. Copernicus, somewhat by accident, touched off the Scientific Revolution in the early 16th century when he wrote to Pope Paul III for support in his recent astrological findings. Using solid math, appropriate research and direct observation, Copernicus concluded that the Earth revolved around the sun rather than, as the Church would have people believe, the Sun revolving around the Earth (Copernicus 1543 cited in Levick, 2004: 524). His evidence was meticulously outlined and his conclusions were sound, but his ideas were introduced to a mostly unreceptive public who still preferred to believe they were central to God's creation. Galileo, introducing some of these same ideas, would gain greater exposure for the idea thanks to the recent invention of the telescope. This made it possible for other people to go and observe with their own eyes the rotations both Galileo and Copernicus had outlined - helped a bit with Galileo's high-class 'star-gazing' parties (Kaku, 2008). Through a simple telescope such as those used by Galileo and his friends, it is possible to see the craters of the moon and the orbits of some of the moons of Jupiter. These observations, combined with sound mathematic principles, made it possible for Galileo, and Copernicus, to prove reality. “All reasonings about mechanics have their foundations in geometry, in which I do not see that largeness and smallness make large circles … subject to properties different from those of small ones” (Levick, 2004: 322). By applying logic to the information, both in proving his conclusion and in introducing it to the world, Galileo was able to inspire further research in other areas of science. This process of applying careful observation and measurable logic to discover reality was quickly transferred to other scientific explorations such as in the field of medicine through the works of medical expert Vesalius. In his writings, he argued it was impossible to truly understand how to cure or heal the body without the application of direct physical science. “They [other doctors of the sixteenth century] have shamefully rid themselves of what is the chief and most venerable branch of medicine, that which based itself principally upon the investigation of nature – as if there were any other” (Levick, 2004: 327). To this point in time, Western medical experiments on cadavers had been strictly forbidden as they were considered sacrilegious. Although they had been done, Leonardo da Vinci is a famous example of someone who broke the rules, autopsies were carried out in secret. As in the case of Galileo and the telescope, the emphasis was placed on logic, reason and observable science as a means of gaining greater support within the public sphere. The gathering of facts and reproducible observations contributed much to our understanding of the world around us and the means by which we were able to harness some of these mechanical processes for our own means, but it would not have proceeded so far so fast without the addition of a means of making the knowledge more generally known. The Enlightenment, which was essentially a period during the late 17th and throughout the 18th centuries, was principally a philosophical movement that changed the way the Western world thinks and also could not have succeeded without advancements in technology. The printing press expanded the number of books available to the general public and encouraged more individuals within that public to learn how to read. Most of the material deemed worthy for printing involved discussions about these new scientific discoveries and the debates they started. Others, such as the treatises of John Locke, Baron Montesquieu, and Jean-Jaques Rousseau, wrote about their philosophical ideas regarding the nature of society and human thought. The difficulties that beset Copernicus were now developed into an organized system of sharing studies, observations, experiments and conclusions through papers created with the printing press. According to Hall (1954), today’s academic society and the journals in which the activities of this society are reported had their earliest foundations in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. “From the end of the 17th century the majority of active men of science were members of some active scientific group; publication in one of the ever more numerous journals gradually became the recognized manner of announcing the results of investigation; and the national scientific society was accepted as the vehicle for the state’s concern in scientific matters” (Hall, 1954: 186). By establishing a 'scientific pulpit' in the form of published journals, a truce was called between science and religion as they each withdrew to interact within their respective spheres. The principles of science are founded on direct observation of natural phenomena followed by careful and measurable analysis of the information. As the Enlightenment thinkers illustrated, the scientist operates by developing an initial hypothesis regarding a process and then attempting to disprove his assumptions. When solid observation and known scientific or mathematic principals discover a new truth, the information, including the methods used to reach it, is published. The objective is not necessarily to prove this is the only truth, but to encourage debate, prompt similar experiments and test the theories offered from all angles. The Scientific Revolution forced the world to realize that the Medieval way of thinking in which the one who wins the argument is the one with the loudest voice was no longer valid. The Age of Enlightenment spread this idea and made it central to the Modern man's thoughts. Within a matter of a few hundred years, the world shifted from concepts of magic and invisible spirits to one understood through the processes of cause and effect. Works Cited Hall, A.R. The Scientific Revolution, 1500-1800: The Formation of the Modern Scientific Attitude. London: Longman Publishing, 1954. Kaku, Michio. "The Telescope: 400 Years and Counting." Wired. October 2, 2008. Levick, Brian P. et al. “Two Views of the Ptolemaic or Pre-Copernican Universe.” The West – Encounters & Transformations. London: Longman Publishing, 2004. Read More