Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Scientific Revolution

The authority of religion was supreme in the 17th century. Both Catholicism and Protestantism had firm grips on the way people were allowed to view the world. The relationship between science and religion has always been a tumultuous one though. There was only a small window of time in which the Greeks were able to dissect human bodies without dissent from religion. This accounted for the mistaken beliefs about human anatomy through antiquity from dissections that were done on animals, their findings being erroneously transposed onto human anatomy.

  In the Renaissance, crossover artists like Leonardo Da Vinci contributed greatly to knowledge of human anatomy, breaking the tradition of animal anatomical knowledge used in place of human anatomical study. This is largely due to the shift in the relationship between religion and science, although this was slight when considering that most astronomical endeavors were greatly limited by Christianity which was threatened by such endeavors.  Again, the in Renaissance, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) started the Copernican Revolution, shifting the world’s paradigm away from the Ptolemaic model. In essence, Copernicus postulated that the Earth was not the center of the universe, but it was the sun at the center. In what way does the Ptolemaic model make sense for the time period? In what ways do you think the Ptolemaic model effected the way people lived and understood the universe and themselves in it? It makes sense that people would want to believe themselves to be the center of the universe and the center of God's affection when the Church's controlled both spiritual knowledge and scientific.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) furthered Copericus’s theory of a heliocentric universe with his investigation of the movements of the planets of our solar system (at the time, only 5 were known) in the 17th century. He suspected that the planets moved around the sun in elliptical paths because of the magnetic pull of the sun and their respective distances from it. Using a camera obscura, he studied the diameter of the moon as a study in optics.  The camera obscura was used by many people interested in optics, including Baroque artists like Vermeer. Simultaneously, Galileo Galilei perfected the telescope, increasing its magnification and with it, he described the surface of the moon, sunspots, and the moons of Jupiter. He also established basic knowledge of light—that it may exist as particles or waves and both forms travel at both a measurable and uniform speed.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was another crusader of the Scientific Revolution and his work in astronomy have since earned him the title "Father of Modern Science". . He supported Copernicus and heliocentrism  and further, refuted Aristole's idea that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. Thus, the theory of gravity was born! The refracting telescopes he constructed could produce magnified, upright images. Galileo's advocacy was not uncontroversial, however. The Church did not look favorably on the theory of heliocentrism for it contradicted many passages in the Bible. To take an example, the Bible tells the story of  a man by the name of Joshua who makes the sun stand still. The assertions of Galileo implied that it was impossible for Joshua to have performed this feat (although it seems odd that it took heliocentrism to challenge this story). The postulations of people like Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Johannes Kepler could lead to an infinite regression of reconsiderations of the inerrancy of the Bible (which history has shown us, has happened with modern reform movements). Galileo was required to defend his theories before Pope Paul V in 1615.  Galileo took Augustine of Hippo's position on scripture-- that scripture is not to be interpreted literally, especially when the scripture is from a book of songs or poetry. But, nonetheless, he failed to convince Pope Paul V which lead to the restriction of him publishing his findings and the spread of his ideas. Later, Pope Urban VIII demanded a full retraction of Galileo’s assertions from him and attempted to banish him to life in prison, although this was never carried out. In the same century, Giordano Bruno, another astronomer, was burned at the stake for claiming other solar systems exist in our universe that is infinite and without a center.

Further in history, mathematician Isaac Newton (1643-1727) brought the world the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy which told it that the universe is an intelligible system, ordered by guiding principles that dictate the way it operates. He postulated that every object exerts an attraction on everything else-- this means that the sun has a pull on the planets and the planets pull their respective moons and each other. These forces working with each other form a harmonious system, like a clock. It will not be until Albert Einstein that this idea is teased to a more detailed understanding of the universe. By Newton's time, despite complications with the and Church, Galileo and Kepler's theories were popularized (the history of this popularization may be explained in a future post), and experiments we actually a form of entertainment. This is the theme of Joseph Wright of Derby's famous An Experiment on a Bird in the Air-Pump, 1768.
It depicts the performance of a magician-scientist resurrecting a seemingly dead bird in front of an audience, demonstrating the power of science. Europe was galloping toward Enlightenment in Newton's time and on its cusp was the dubious Industrial Revolution which, as will be explored later, did not bring" progress" in the way that one might assume (or the way it was hoped for). But to put first things first,we must get through the rest of the 17th century to understand the coming Enlightenment.


Thought food:
From Wikipedia:
Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe as a whole.[5]
  • What might Einstein's special theory of relativity say about the nature of science?
  • Is science colloquioally talked about as fact-- absolute and resolute?
  • In what ways are science and mythology similar? Do they answer similar questions? Do they both require faith to accept as FACT in the way that people often profess them?
  • How much of science do we take on faith? How well do you really understand science (something elementary, now, like gravity or heliocentricism)?
  • Why is science so convincing in some arenas like medicine (why do they religious trust in doctors when they are sick but God when they are dying? perhaps because of a clause built into the doctrine?) but challenged in existential arenas (like the afterlife and creation?)
  • Does science yield better Earthly results than religion?
  • Does religion yield better existential (or moralistic) results than science?
  • For those that profess to beileve in scientific creation explanations, how different is their belief from that in a Pantheon of Gods or Yaweh?
  • How many people actually understand the science of the Big Bang Theory?

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