The Scientific

Revolution …
… with a little philosophy and a little of the ‘now’
 History of Science…

Studies the change of natural

knowledge claims over time and
also the causes of these
changes.
“Today’s science is tomorrow’s
history of science.”
 Scientific Revolution(s)
The Scientific Revolution is a term commonly referring to the
transformation of thought about nature through which the Aristotelian
tradition was replaced by so-called "modern" science.

Most see it as a series of events focused in the period 16th and 17th
century or, more precisely, from 1543 (De Revolutionibus of
Copernicus) to 1687 (Principia of Newton). Others grant it some
status from 1300 to 1800.

Still others, see revolutions all around, Glorious, American, French,

Industrial, Chemical, Darwinian, Freudian, Russian, Quantum, and
Plate Tectonics.

Revolution, revolutions, or evolution of ideas, it depends on who you

read.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exV_u6g56oM
Aristotelian natural philosophy
 Aristotelian Cosmology

Celestial realm – the Heavens:

Uniform circular motion
Perfect and incorruptible
Quintessence or aether

Sublunar realm:
Natural place and natural motion
Generation and corruption
Four elements: earth, water, air, and fire
Cold, hot, moist, dry, affinity and opposition
Aristotelian Cosmology
The sub-lunar realm
 Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, Places

Emphasized the effects of climate and other

geographical factors on human health.
Climate is a primary influence, but human institutions
could have a moderating effect.
Overall, however, the relationship between health and
lifestyle is under the direct influence, if not the
control, of airs, waters, and places.
Hippocratic medicine
 The Early Scientific
Revolution(s)
If there is a ‘start’ date for the Scientific
Revolutioin, it is 1543, with the
publication of Copernicus’ De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium 
Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543)
where it may all have started!

Copernicus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzo8vnxSARg
Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)
Andrés Vesalio or Andries van Wesel

De humani corporis fabrica…, 1543

On the fabric of the human body
 William Harvey (1578 –1657)

… and the circulation of the blood

De Motu Cordis 1628

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
He is credited with developing
the scientific method and was an
influential figure throughout
the scientific revolution.
Bacon has been called the father
of empiricism. His works argued for
the possibility of scientific knowledge
based only upon inductive
reasoning and careful observation of
events in nature. Most importantly,
he argued science could be achieved
by use of a sceptical and methodical
approach whereby scientists aim to
avoid misleading themselves.
William Gilbert (1544-1603)
De Magnete (1600)
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Kinematics and Astronomy
Telescope
Sunspots, Phases of Venus, Lunar
craters, Moons of Jupiter, Milky way
made of stars
Support of Heliocentrism
Experiments with falling bodies
Mathematics of motion
Galileo explains his discovery to the Pope
René Descartes (1596-1650)
Mathematics and Natural Philosophy
Analytic geometry
Le monde (1633)
L’Homme (1637)
Discours de la Méthode (1637)
Principia philosophia (1644)
Les Passions de l’âme (1649)
Dynamics
Robert Boyle (1627-1691)

Experimental Method, Natural

Philosophy
Air Pump
Skeptical Chymist (1661)
Boyle’s Law
Royal Society of London
Public Verification of Science
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
A key figure in the 17th-
century scientific revolution,
best known for his laws of
planetary motion, and his
books Astronomia
nova, Harmonices Mundi,
and Epitome Astronomiae
Copernicanae. These
works also provided one of
the foundations
for Newton's theory
of universal gravitation.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
Theory of Light
Theory of Motion
Theory of Gravity
Philosophiae Naturalis
Principia Mathematica
(1667)
Dynamics
Alchemy
Theology
Master of the Mint
Newtonian World System
The sudden emergence of new information during
the Scientific Revolution called into question
religious beliefs, moral principles, and the traditional
scheme of nature. It also strained old institutions
and practices, necessitating new ways of
communicating and disseminating information.

Prominent innovations included scientific societies

(which were created to discuss and validate new
discoveries) and scientific papers (which were
developed as tools to communicate new information
comprehensibly and test the discoveries and
 hypotheses made by their authors).
Later Scientific
Revolutions
 Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
On the Origin of the Species
(1859)

Darwin's scientific discovery is

the unifying theory of the life
sciences, explaining
the diversity of life.

One of the most influential

people in human history
 Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

The Theory of Relativity,

one of the two pillars of
modern physics.

And a whole lot more!

 Quantum Mechanics

The replacement of
Classical Physics by
Quantum Physics
was a slow evolution
of ideas.
Max Planck, Einstein,
Niels Bohr, Erwin
Shrödinger, Werner
Heisenberg, Max
Born and others.
Kurt Gödel (1906-1978)

Logician – likened to a
modern-day
Aristotle!
 Significance of the
Scientific Revolution
Historian Alexandre Koyre first used the term ‘Scientific
Revolution’ in 1943 when he called it, “the most profound
revolution achieved or suffered by the human mind.”

Herbert Butterfield (1949)

“The Scientific Revolution overturned the authority in science
not only of the middle ages but of the ancient world
It ended not only in the eclipse of scholastic philosophy but in
the destruction of Aristotelian physics
It outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and
reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the realm of
mere episodes, mere internal displacements, within the
system of medieval Christendom.”
 Thomas Kuhn
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
What are scientific revolutions all about?
1. The community's rejection of a time-honored scientific theory
in favor of another incompatible (or incommensurable) with it.
2. A shift in the problems available for scientific scrutiny and the
standards of legitimate problem solving.
3. Each involved a transformation of the scientific imagination
and worldview.
4. Each involved heated controversy.
5. Each was followed by a period of “normal science”
6. Examples: Copernicus, Newton, Lavosier, Einstein.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L70T4pQv7P8
 Is there a “Post-normal” science?
'Post-Normal Science', a mode of scientific problem-solving appropriate
to policy issues where facts are uncertain, values are in dispute,
stakes are high and decisions are urgent. 
Today’s web pages are becoming the equivalent of printing which
empowered the Protestant revolution against the Church.
The scientists vs. the wider, non-scientific community with its new
technological base,” the internet.
Wikipedia, post-normal science
Opens more of science to the democratic process.
Problems:
 Critics are not usually researchers and don’t have the facts.
 Science vs the needs of politicians and business
 Junk science which is manipulated to be made believable.
 Conspiracy theorists.
Needed:
 Ethics in science, open data, and reform of peer review.
"There are two kinds of scientific progress:
the methodical experimentation and
categorization which gradually extend the
boundaries of knowledge, and the
revolutionary leap of genius which redefines
and transcends those boundaries.
Acknowledging our debt to the former, we
yearn, nonetheless, for the latter."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzo8vnxSARg