The Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution was a period of history when what we think of as modern science started to emerge. During this period, people began to study the world around them and develop the areas of scientific study of mathematics, astronomy, physics, biology, anatomy and chemistry. The core idea driving scientific work was that humans had the ability to understand how everything in the universe works. These scientists used logic and experimentation to build their understanding of the universe.

To understand how the Scientific Revolution changed people's lives, it is necessary to understand how people thought the world worked during the Middle Ages. People during the Middle Ages relied on the church and on superstitions to explain why things happened, and they didn't question these authorities. During the Middle Ages, people believed that natural events occurred for reasons that were beyond human understanding. If a crop was damaged, it was because the farmer had done something to offend God. If a person recovered from an illness, it was because the local doctor had used leeches to suck out the "bad blood."

The Scientific Revolution was driven by a new method of study, called the Scientific Method. This is the same Scientific Method that you use in your science classes in school. To use the Scientific Method, scientists start with a hypothesis - what they predict will happen. Then they conduct experiments to test their hypothesis. Lastly, they examine their results and draw conclusions. So a doctor might hypothesize that leeches do not actually draw out the "bad blood" and help a patient recover from an illness. He might use leeches in half of his patients and not use leeches with the other half. Then, he would observe the patients and see which group recovered better. If the non-leech patients recovered more quickly, then he would know that the leeches were actually hurting his patients. Then he would decide not to treat his patients with leeches anymore, and the traditional practice would slowly fade away. So while the Scientific Method did not change things overnight, it allowed scientists to learn about the world around them, rather than trust tradition or the word of the church.

The Scientific Revolution demonstrated that the universe is governed by rational systems and natural laws that people can understand. More importantly, scientists argued that people could use this knowledge of natural laws to develop technology to improve people lives. This idea had a big effect beyond the world of science. During the Enlightenment, many thinkers thought that human society might be like the natural world - that is, it is also driven by "natural laws". The goal of the Enlightenment was to learn the "natural laws" of society and make a better society.

Source # 1 - Video about Newton and his discoveries - click here