The Scientific Revolution Essay, Research Paper

In the early sixteenth century Europe lessened the grip of superstition and allowed a renewal of nature study, and exact study. The return to the authority of the Scriptures, which was the hallmark of the Protestant movement, caused people to become very interested in the natural world which the God of the Scriptures had created. They wanted to discover the secrets of the universe and, wherever possible, to use their discoveries for the benefit of others. As science turned to the principles of the Bible, a great new era began – the era of modern science. The Scientific Revolution refers to the fundamental changes in our understandings of the natural world that occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This led to a great rejection of ancient and medieval thinking about the universe, which then paved the way for the birth of modern science. “A progression toward perfection would be to go from earth to the heavens, and in fact the idea existed that beyond the outermost spheres of the universe was God. The perceived structure of the universe mirrored the Christian ideas about heaven and earth,” according to Michael L. Friedman, who is the Ruth N. Halls Chair Professor of History and Philosophy of Science and of Philosophy. As the scientists of the scientific revolution became more interested in the Bible the number of discoveries increased dramatically. The reason for this increase in discoveries during this era was the return to the religion of the Bible. Sir Isaac Newton stated it most clearly when he said, “No sciences are better attested than the religion of the Bible.” Sir Isaac Newton was not alone in his belief in the

scriptures. Joseph Lister, Carl Linnaeus, Louis Pasteur, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Johannes Kepler, all believed in the value of the Bible, and these are just a few of the many great discoverers of the scientific revolution who’s beliefs were founded on the Scriptures of the Bible. We cannot believe that the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries took place instantaneously, or that it came to be in an explosion of genius. also we cannot think that Copernicus or Kepler or Galileo just woke up one morning and pronounced their discoveries to a world which became somehow instantaneously different. Past historians have looked at the history of modern science from exactly this point of view. Much like the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution has been interpreted as explosion or a surge forward. On this idea, John Herman Randall once remarked that, “One gathers, indeed, from our standard histories of the sciences, written mostly in the last generation, that the world lay steeped in the darkness and night of superstition, till one day Copernicus bravely cast aside the errors of his fellows, looked at the heavens and observed nature, the first man since the Greeks to do so, and discovered . . . the truth about the solar system. The next day, so to speak, Galileo climbed the leaning Tower of Pisa, dropped down his weights, and as they thudded to the ground, Aristotle was crushed to earth and the laws of falling bodies sprang into being.” [Source: The Career of Philosophy, vol. 1, 1962] This idea is, of course, completely false. The scientific revolution took many years to unfold. Only when the scientists returned to the scriptures did the revolution begin. As Christianity rose scientific discovery rose conversely. As science turned to the principals of the Bible, a great new era began – the era of modern science.