How Did The Scientific Revolution Affect European Society

During the sixteenth and seventeenth century’s, controversial and profound ideas were developed in what would become a time period of tremendous advances in the European approach to science during that period. This period of time is known as the Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution is regarded as the period in Western history that started the transition to the modern world. The Scientific Revolution can be characterized as century and a half of scientific innovation, where numerous advances were made in various fields of study. The Scientific Revolution represented a “replacement of Aristotelian and scholastic natural philosophy with a quantified and mechanistic understanding of nature.” During the Renaissance period, scientific

knowledge was dominated by the Catholic Church. People blindly accepted the discoveries and publications of the church and its clergy. This changed after the Protestant Reformation in 1517. People started to question the legitimacy of the Catholic Church. Catholics began to doubt the truth of Protestantism. The doubt became infectious and people began to wonder what else the church was wrong about. Skepticism among groups of thinkers led to a break from intellectual tradition and people began to study nature in a different way. Scientists rebelled and started doing their own studies and the results of their studies were not matching up with the churches findings. This was the start of the Scientific Revolution. Before a new understanding of nature could be developed, basic philosophical concepts such as mechanical action, atoms, and experimental techniques needed to be accepted, and previous ideas from philosophers like Ptolemy and Aristotle needed to be discarded. This struggle to develop a new understanding of the world began in Europe, and although dates are disputed, the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is often cited as the beginning. According to Jacob, “elements such as patronage, the printing press, competition, vitality of urban markets, over seas trade and exploration all contributed to the rise of new science.” The Scientific method is one of the most distinguished features in modern society. Every aspect of our lives today has been greatly shaped by science. We use science for almost everything from understanding the human body, to technological advances as simple as the cell phone. We would have none of these advances today if not for the Scientific Revolution. Nicolaus Copernicus greatly contributed to the progress of the Scientific Revolution. Copernicus was a Polish mathematician and astronomer. Many historians of the Scientific Revolution date it’s beginning to Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus’ main contribution was he was the first astronomer to formulate a heliocentric model of the universe that placed the earth moving around the sun, not vice versa. He published this model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, just before he died in 1543. His book is often credited as being the starting point of modern astronomy, and the defining insight that sparked the Scientific Revolution. After much mathematical analysis, Copernicus concluded that Ptolemy's system of epicycles, which was supposed to explain the retrograde motion of planets through the skies, was seriously flawed. Copernicus changed this flawed belief with the introduction of the heliocentric model. Contrary to Ptolemy’s system, in which the sun and stars revolved around the earth daily, Copernicus proposed a system that positioned the sun at the center of the universe with the rest of the planets including earth revolving around it. Copernicus’s Heliocentrism, generated “a new concept of space where humankind is no longer at the centre--causing both spatial and theological transformation as the new universe disrupts humankind's privileged relationship to God.” This concept was very controversial because it differed from the traditional geocentric model that put the earth at the center of everything and it opposed traditional beliefs instilled by the church. Copernicus’ heliocentric model helped explain things that the geocentric model could not. Copernicus’ delayed the publication of his book due to fear of being accused of heresy by the church. He expressed his hesitation to Pope Paul III in The Preface of his book when he stated, “ the thought of the scorn which I had to fear on account of the novelty and incongruity of my theory well-nigh induced me to abandon my project.” The significance of Copernicus’ work was tremendous. His work changed age-old beliefs of how the world worked, and helped set thinking free from the restraints put on them by the church. Although his heliocentric model was not completely correct, it provided a strong foundation for future scientists to work with in terms of understanding how the universe operates. Isaac Newton was one of the most influential scientists in modern history. He had a tremendous impact on various disciplines of science, including math, physics and more. Isaac Newton was arguably the greatest philosophical and mathematical thinker of the Scientific Revolution. Newton was the cornerstone of the Scientific Revolution, and his work combined the contributions of Kepler, Descartes, Galileo, Boyle, and Bacon others into a new science known as “Newtonian science”. Newton’s greatest contributions were in the areas of mathematics and science. Many of the laws and theories he discovered helped further our understanding of the universe, while also providing future scientists with the tools to improve upon his work. One contribution Newton made to the Scientific Revolution was the development of calculus. Newton’s laws of force made it “possible to calculate the amount of work done by a certain volume of water falling from a known height, or the amount of work it would take to raise a certain weight a know distance.” The development of calculus provided society with a faster, more efficient form of mathematics than geometry for describing bodies in motion. Another contribution Newton made to the Scientific Revolution was the establishment of universal gravitation. According to Jacob, Newton’s law of universal gravitation states “that the planet is kept in its elliptical orbit because all bodies attract each other, with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to their distance from one another.” Furthermore, our modern understanding of color and light began with Newton. Using prisms and a very exacting experimental technique, Newton discovered that the index of refraction varies with wavelength and that white light or (sunlight) consisted of a mixture of numerous colors. Newton states this theory in a paper he wrote to the Royal Society, “ Colors are not qualifications of light, derived from refractions, or reflections of natural bodies but original and connate properties, which in diverse rays are diverse.” Arguably, Newton’s greatest accomplishment was his masterwork Principia. Many consider Principia as the greatest book on science ever written. Principia is defined as a work in mechanics, describing the law of universal gravitation in a way that any educated person could understand. Before Principia, there had never been a scientific work published that provided so much insight about the physical world. Many consider Isaac Newton to be the most brilliant and influential scientist in history. According to Jacob, Newton’s “method of reasoning about nature, going from analysis by experimentation to a general principle or synthesis to be tested again by analysis, became the methodological foundation of all scientific work.” Isaac Newton established a solid foundation for which all modern science could be built upon. His theories replaced Aristotelian mechanics and caused a paradigm shift in the outlook on the workings of the universe. His emphasis on the experimental approach was crucial for transforming natural philosophy into science.
The Scientific Revolution faced obstacles before fully being accepted. In France, it was only after the Jesuits were expelled from the country after 1750, that we saw schools and universities curriculums shift to Newtonian science. It took many years before new science was universally embraced. Factors such as religious intolerance and conflict really demonstrated a urgent need for ancient learning to be improved. Gradually, religious dogmatism and traditionally beliefs were replaced by experimentation and rational thinking. This led to the emergence of societies.
An important facilitator that allowed for the spreading of the Scientific Revolution was Isaac Newton’s friend Jean T. Desaguliers. Desaguilers provided a practical application of the Scientific Revolution. Because of his familiarity with Newtonian science among other key scientific advances, he was able to articulate (via lecture) these new complex ideas in way that ordinary people could understand. An example of this is the effect he had on John Marshall. His lectures made it possible for Marshall to study the problems of velocity and resistance, and to learn about the working of steam engines. Consequently, Marshall took that information and used it to “increase the speed of bobbins and harness the power of his new steam engines.” The printing press also contributed to the spreading the Scientific Revolution because it allowed access to books in every language and every country. Another facilitator that helped spread the Scientific Revolution was social interaction. The development of royal courts, formal and informal societies, and academies helped greatly benefit the practice of natural philosophy. The complexity of the natural world required group social interaction for people to be able to understand what needed to be communicated. Social interaction allowed for experimental demonstrations, which helped make things easier for people to understand.
The Scientific Revolution had a tremendous impact on European society as a whole.

People began rely more on experimentation and reason, instead of age-old superstitions and religious beliefs. The Scientific Revolution also had a profound impact on the church and its role in society. Some of the great innovators of the Scientific Revolution went against the church in order to prove their experiments and theories. This led to religion taking a lesser role in society due to the fact that reason became more important than faith. Ultimately, the Scientific Revolution led to a cultural change that emphasized the importance of knowledge and science in daily life. Another facilitator that allowed the Scientific Revolution to spread was a common vocabulary and ideology that could be shared across Europe. If scientific work was to be expanded upon, a common vocabulary that could be universally understood was necessary. After a struggle between various philosophical practices and languages, an agreement was finally reached to establish “mechanical” science as the common vocabulary. The new form of communication included new learned academies, courts and print culture. At first, understanding these new terms was a male privilege, but by the mid eighteenth century women took part in learning the new science as

well.
The Scientific Revolution is regarded as the period in Western history in which rationalism and scientific progress made tremendous leaps forward. During the Scientific Revolution, significant progress was made in the fields of astronomy, scientific method, physics, biology, mechanical philosophy, and medicine. The Scientific Revolution was a transition period to the modern world. An example of this is by the eighteenth century a person wasn’t considered educated if they still believed the earth was at the center of the universe. The Scientific Revolution was revolutionary because it represented a fundamental change in how Europeans understood the universe and the world. Each scientist and philosophers work challenged the traditional views of the world and cultivated a new way of thinking that emphasized firsthand experimentation and observation as the basis for explaining things instead of accepted, age-old beliefs based on faith. The Scientific Revolution significantly influenced European society in a positive way. The progress that took place built a foundation for modern science and society. Modern technological advances and our understanding of the world today would not be possible without the progress made during the Scientific Revolution.