SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION: CHARACTERISTICS AND CONSEQUENCES - HISTORY

The scientific revolution is a concept used to describe the emergence of modern science during the Early Modern Age. Although it is generally considered to have taken place between the 16th and 17th centuries, the use of the term did not arrive until the 20th century, created by the philosopher and historian Alexandre Koyré in 1939.

Although there are different theories, including one that denies the existence of the Scientific Revolution, most consider that it began at the end of the Renaissance. During that time, Europe experienced changes in its way of understanding and studying the world. This led to new ideas and knowledge in all scientific and philosophical fields.

Galileo Galilei - Source: Domenico Tintoretto

The scientific revolution is generally considered to have begun with the publication of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the turns of the celestial orbs) by Nicolaus Copernicus. This author discovered, through observation and mathematics, that it was the Earth that revolved around the sun and not the other way around.

The use of the scientific method is precisely the main characteristics of this revolution. Through this system, important advances were made in astronomy, medicine, physics or chemistry, in addition to the appearance of important technological inventions.

Historic context

Florence in the Renaissance

The Renaissance had been a period in which the arts and sciences flourished. In this last field, knowledge had been recovered from ancient times, mainly from Greece.

That historical stage supposed, at least from the vision of his contemporaries, a recovery with respect to the Middle Ages, which they considered to be a dark era.

Since the end of the 16th century and, above all, during the 17th century, science has taken a qualitative leap, allowing very important advances. The main one, however, occurred in the very concept of science, which became experimental and quantitative.

Background

The basis of the scientific revolution is found in the recovery of some knowledge and methods from classical Greece and from that developed in the Islamic world and in Rome.

Before Copernicus published his work, the Aristotelian tradition was still very important in the intellectual world, although there were already philosophers who were moving away from it.

One of the factors outside science that influenced later events was the crisis between the papacy and the empire, which occurred around the year 1400. Christianity began to lose power and, with it, its control over the world view.

Renaissance thought

In the Renaissance there is a confrontation between the scholastic system and the attempt to recover ancient thought. In the latter, it was the human being who occupied the center, facing the existence of an all-powerful deity. To this must be added the appearance of new currents and ideas in politics, religion and science.

The admiration that the Renaissance, totally humanists, had towards the Greco-Roman culture led them to consider the Middle Ages as a period of darkness. Many authors recovered classical works, either from well-known thinkers, such as Plato or Aristotle, or from creators who had been forgotten or censored.

In the end, however, the Renaissance broke with all kinds of intellectual authority, claiming their own autonomy. This will be essential for the emergence of the scientific revolution.

Politics

The political context was also novel. Before the beginning of the scientific revolution, national monarchies had appeared, considered the germ of nation-states. These had been organized under the system of political absolutism.

Little by little, in these new states a new social class appeared, the bourgeoisie. This, economically powerful and politically more liberal, had more and more social influence. Related to this, the city gained ground against the rural environment.

An important author in the field of political philosophy was Machiavelli (1469-1527). This author is considered the creator of modern political thought. In his work, especially in The Prince, he described the conduct of Renaissance kings and princes, reflecting the unscrupulousness of many of them.

Similarly, during this time utopian authors began to appear, reflecting imaginary perfect worlds in their works.

Discoveries of new lands

The discovery of new lands by Europeans meant that they had to open their eyes to new realities. Likewise, scientific expeditions began to be organized to study all aspects of the new territories.

Protestant Reformation

The Christian faith, which had acted as a union between all European countries, was broken with the Protestant Reformation. Corruption in the Catholic Church was one of the triggers for Luther's break with Catholicism.

The result, apart from the very division among the believers, was a time of religious persecution and war, but also of the emergence of new ideas.

Print

When Gutenberg introduced the printing press to the world, the spread of knowledge took a radical turn. For the first time, copies of books could be distributed to the population, without being limited to convents or the elite.

Humanism

The Renaissance bequeathed to the world of thought and knowledge two fundamental supports for the appearance of the scientific revolution: humanism and science.

Humanism developed over all of Italy. It had a pedagogical meaning and offered a new concept of education based on the individual, his relationship in harmony with nature and cultural universalism.

The expansion of this thought throughout Europe was possible thanks to the printing press, which favored the circulation of classical texts. In addition, it laid the foundations for intellectuals to exchange their ideas.

characteristics

The main characteristic of the Scientific Revolution was its ability to break down old beliefs, such as that the Earth was the center of the Universe. To do this, he used the scientific method, and adopted mathematics as a tool to describe what surrounded the human being.

Scientific method

From the seventeenth century on, the scientific method was applied and perfected, based on systematic experimentation in research. Trial and error and repeated observation of each event to draw conclusions drawn from the data came to be accepted as the best system by the scientific community.

This new way of doing science, based on an inductive approach to nature, meant abandoning the old Aristotelian approach, centered on deduction from known facts.

Empiricism

As previously mentioned, the Aristotelian scientific tradition based research on observation and reasoning. In the case of observing events that deviated from the norm, these were classified as aberrant.

The Scientific Revolution totally changed this approach. To begin with, much more value was placed on the evidence, whether experimental or observed. In this methodology, empiricism played a fundamental role..

Before the scientific revolution, there had been some scholars who bet on empiricism in research. The philosopher Guillermo de Ockham was one of the greatest exponents of this current.

Empiricism, according to John Locke, one of its most important thinkers, established that the only knowledge that the human being could encompass and understand was that based on experience.

Inductivism

Another current of thought related to the scientific revolution was inductivism. This shares with empiricism some of its postulates, since it considers that scientific knowledge is something objective, measurable and demonstrable from the results of experiments.

This philosophy had its beginnings in the seventeenth century. Its definitive consolidation came from the hand of Isaac Newton and his discoveries.

Inductivists, likewise, affirmed that in order to know nature, one should study directly and not blindly trust those previously written about it, not even if it appeared in the Bible.

Hypothetical-deductive method

Galileo Galilei was a pioneer in combining the observation of phenomena using two different methods: hypothesis and measurement. This gave rise to the resolutive-compositional method, also called hypothetical-deductive.

Mathematization

Unlike what previous scientists had done, in the 16th and 17th centuries quantitative measurements began to be applied to the measurement of physical phenomena. This meant that mathematics was part of the scientific method.

The degree of importance of this phenomenon can be clearly seen in the words of Galileo, who stated that mathematics offered a certainty that could be compared to that of God.

Institutionalization

Other important characteristics of the scientific revolution was the emergence of scientific societies. These were the origin of the institutionalization of the investigation and provided a framework for the discoveries to be exposed, discussed and made public. The first such society was the Royal Society of England.

Later, in 1666, the French replicated the British by creating the Academy of Sciences. In this case, unlike the English one that was private, it was a public organization, founded by the government.

Religion versus science

As expected, the new scientific methods and the results obtained collided with the Catholic Church.

Issues such as the assertion that the Earth was not the center of the Universe or that it moved around the Sun, provoked the rejection of the Church. The scientific revolution supposed, in this aspect, to introduce knowledge that challenged the religious conception of the world, eliminating the "divine design" to explain existence.

Representatives and their main contributions

The beginning of the scientific revolution is usually marked at the time of the publication of the main work of Nicolás Copernicus. Later, in the seventeenth century, other discoveries were made by scientists such as Galileo, Newton or Boyle that changed the vision of the world.

Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolas Copernicus - Source: UnknownDeutsch: UnbekanntEnglish: UnknownPolski: Nieznany

As has been pointed out, and although there are experts who disagree, it is often said that the scientific revolution was originated by Nicolás Copernicus. Specifically, the beginning is marked in the publication, in 1543, of his work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the turns of the celestial orbs).

The Polish astronomer changed his vision of how the solar system was ordered with his research. In fact, since Greek times it was known that the Earth was not the center of the solar system, but that knowledge had been ignored and replaced by the belief in a geocentric system.

Copernicus, through his observations, affirmed that the central celestial body of our system was the Sun. Likewise, he established the bases to demonstrate it, correcting the calculation errors of previous scientists.

Johannes kepler

The German astronomer Johannes Kepler took advantage of the earlier work of Tycho Brahe to provide accurate data about the solar system.

Brahe had perfectly measured the orbits of the planets and Kepler used the data to discover that those orbits were not circular, but elliptical.

Besides that, I formulate other laws about the motion of the planets. Together, this allowed him to improve Copernicus' hypothesis about the solar system and its characteristics.

Galileo Galilei

Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Justus Sustermans.

Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer, mathematician, and physicist, as well as being one of the founders of modern mechanics. Born in 1564, he was totally in favor of the heliocentric system proposed by Copernicus. Thus, he dedicated himself to observing the solar system to draw new conclusions.

His discoveries cost him a conviction from the Catholic Church. In 1633, he had to retract his claims about the movement of the planets. His life was spared, but he had to remain under house arrest for the rest of his life.

In the field of mathematical physics, Galileo claimed that nature could be perfectly described using mathematics. According to him, the job of a scientist was to decipher the laws that governed the movement of bodies.

As for mechanics, his main contributions were to enunciate the principle of inertia and that of the fall of the bass.

The first of these principles states that every body remains at rest or in motion with constant speed along a circular path, even when an external force accelerates or decelerates it.

For its part, the second says that the falling movement of the bass is the result of the action of force and resistance of the medium.

Francis Bacon

It was not only scientists who led this revolution. Philosophers also appeared who gave a theoretical basis to their postulates. One of the most important was Francis Bacon, whose works established inductive methods in scientific research.

Bacon, in addition to being a philosopher, was a politician, lawyer and writer. He is known as the father of empiricism, whose theory he developed in his De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum (On the dignification and progress of science). Likewise, he detailed the rules of the experimental scientific method in Novum organum.

In this last work, the author conceived of science as a technique that can give human beings control over nature.

This British author demanded that the investigation of all natural elements be guided by a planned procedure. Bacon baptized this reform of the knowledge process as The Great Installation. In addition, he believed that science and its discoveries should serve to improve human living conditions.

For this last reason, Bacon claimed that scientists should abandon merely intellectual discussions and the pursuit of contemplative goals. Instead, they had to focus their efforts on improving the lives of humanity with their new inventions.

Rene Descartes

René Descartes was another of the protagonists of the scientific revolution. In his case, his contributions occurred in two different aspects: the philosophical and the purely scientific.

The author developed a general philosophy on the new geometric science of nature. Its purpose was to create a universal science based on those facts discovered through reason, leaving the figure of God as the guarantor of the objectivity and foundation of everything that exists.

In this aspect, in the knowledge of the natural from experience, Descartes is considered as an heir and follower of Renaissance science, beginning with the criticism of the Aristotelian postulates and continuing with the recognition of the heliocentric system proposed by Copernicus.

Descartes, like Galileo, defended the mathematical character of space. While the second did it with his mathematical formulas on the motion of falling, the first postulated it in geometry. In this field, the author contributed the laws of motion, highlighting the modern formulation of the law of inertia.

The entire Cartesian universe has an ontological basis supported by God. However, the author subjected this universe to the laws of motion, arguing that it was self-regulating in a mechanical system.

Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton's work Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687) established the paradigm of modern scientific research. In this work, the author detailed the constituent elements of the universe.

First, you would find matter, an infinite series of resistant and impenetrable atoms. Next to these, space would appear, empty, homogeneous and immobile.

To transport the particles in absolute space, there would be another different element: movement. And finally, universal gravitation, the great contribution of Newton, who, through mathematics, gave a unitary explanation of a large number of phenomena: from the fall of the grave to planetary orbits.

All that theory had a key element, a constant and universal force: gravity. That force would be the cause of all the masses of the universe constantly interacting, attracting each other.

The only thing Newton couldn't figure out was to determine the cause of the attraction. At the time, that question was beyond the capabilities of mathematical physics. Given this, the author chose to create a hypothesis in which he introduced the divinity.

Andrew Vesalius

Another scientific field that advanced thanks to the revolution was medicine. For more than a millennium, it had been based on the writings of Galen, a Greek physician. It was Vesalius, an Italian scholar, who showed the errors in Galen's model.

The novelty in Vesalius's work was that he based his conclusions on the dissection of human bodies, instead of settling for animals as Galen had done. His 1543 work, De humani corporis fabrica, is considered a pioneer in the analysis of human anatomy.

This use of dissection, apart from his discoveries, was one of the great contributions of Vesalius. For a long time, the Church and social customs prohibited the use of human corpses in research. Obviously, that made scientific advances in the matter very difficult.

William Harvey

Also in the field of medicine, the English physician William Harvey made a discovery with very important repercussions. Thanks to his research, he was the first to correctly describe the circulation and properties of blood when it is distributed throughout the body by pumping the heart.

This finding confirmed the one already stated by Descartes, who had written that arteries and veins carried nutrients throughout the human body.

Similarly, Harvey was the creator of the oocyte concept. He did not actually observe it directly, but he was the first to suggest that humans, and other mammals, harbored a species of egg in which their descendants were formed. This idea was very badly received at the time.

Robert Boyle

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is considered the first modern chemist. Despite his alchemical training, he was the first to separate that ancient discipline from chemistry. Furthermore, he based all his studies on the modern experimental method.

Although he was not its original discoverer, Boyle is known for a law named after him. In it, he described the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and the volume of a gas, as long as it was kept at a constant temperature in a closed system.

Similarly, the author also gained much recognition after publishing, in 1661, his work The Skeptical Chymist. This book became fundamental to chemistry. It was in this publication that Boyle offered his hypothesis that all phenomena were the result of collisions of moving particles.

Like the rest of the representatives of the scientific revolution, Boyle encouraged chemists to carry out experiments. The scientist considered that all theory had to be tested experimentally before being presented as authentic.

He also claimed that his empirical investigations had shown the falsehood that only the four elements mentioned by the classics existed: earth, water, air and fire.

William Gilbert

Although less known than other scientists, William Gilbert was recognized for his work on magnetism and electricity. In fact, it was this researcher who, in his work De Magnete, invented the Latin word electricus. To do this, he took the Greek term for amber, elektron.

Gilbert carried out a series of experiments in which he determined that there were many substances capable of manifesting electrical properties, such as sulfur or glass. Likewise, he discovered that any heated body lost its electricity and that humidity prevented its electrification, since it altered the insulation.

In his research, he also noted that electrified substances were attracted to all other substances, whereas the magnet only attracted iron.

All of these discoveries earned Gilbert the title of founder of electrical science.

Otto von Guericke

Following the works of Gilbert, Otto von Guericke invented, in 1660, the first electrostatic generator although it was very primitive.

As early as the late seventeenth century, some researchers had built some means of generating electricity by friction. However, it would not be until the following century when these devices became fundamental tools in the studies on the Science of electricity.

It was Stephen Gray, in 1729, who demonstrated that electricity could be transmitted through metallic filaments, opening the door to the invention of the light bulb.

On the other hand, Otto von Guericke also presented the results of an experiment related to the history of the steam engine. The scientist showed that by creating a partial vacuum under a piston inserted into a cylinder, the force of atmospheric pressure that pushed that piston down was greater than that of fifty men.

Other inventions and discoveries

Calculation devices

The scientific revolution also brought advances in computing devices. Thus, John Napier began to use logarithms as a mathematical tool. To facilitate calculations, he introduced a computational advance to his logarithmic tables.

For his part, Edmund Gunter built what is considered the first analog device to help computing. The evolution of that device ended up creating the slide rule. Its invention is attributed to William Oughtred, who used two sliding scales to perform multiplication and division.

Another novel device was the one developed by Blaise Pascal: the mechanical calculator. This device, baptized as Pascalina, marked the beginning of the development of mechanical calculators in Europe.

Building on the works of Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz became one of the most important inventors in the field of mechanical calculators. Among his contributions, the Leibniz wheel stands out, considered as the first mechanical calculator of mass production.

Likewise, his work is responsible for the improvement of the binary number system, present today in the entire computer field.

Industrial machines

The subsequent industrial revolution owes much to the advances made during this time in steam machinery. Among the pioneers is Denis Papin, invention of the steam digester, a primitive version of the steam engine itself.

Later, Thomas Savery introduced the first steam engine. The machine was patented in 1698, although the proof of its effectiveness in front of an audience was delayed until June 14, 1699, at the Royal Society.

From then on, other inventors perfected the invention and adapted it to practical functions. Thomas Newcomen, for example, adapted the steam engine to be used for pumping water. For this work he is considered as a precursor of the industrial revolution.

For his part, Abraham Darby developed a method of producing high-quality iron. For this, he used a furnace that was not fed with coal, but with coke.

Telescopes

The first refracting telescopes were built in the Netherlands in 1608. The following year, Galileo Galilei used this invention for his astronomical observations. However, despite the importance of their appearance, these devices offered a not very accurate image.

In 1663, investigations began to correct that error. The first to describe how to fix it was James Gregory, who described how to make another, more accurate type of telescope, the reflector. However, Gregory did not go beyond theory.

Three years later, Isaac Newton got down to business. Although, at first, he defended the use of refracting telescopes, eventually he decided to build a reflector. The scientist successfully presented his device in 1668.

As early as the 18th century, John Hadley introduced the more precise spherical and parabolic objectives to reflecting telescopes.

Consequences

Broadly speaking, the consequences of the Scientific Revolution can be divided into three large groups: methodological, philosophical and religious.

Methodological consequences

It can be considered that the methodological change in scientific research was, at the same time, the cause and consequence of this revolution. The researchers stopped relying solely on their intuitions to explain what was happening around them. Instead, they began to rely on observation and experimentation.

These two concepts, together with that of the need for empirical verification, became the basis of the scientific method. Each working hypothesis had to be confirmed by experiments and, furthermore, were subject to continuous review.

Another novel element was the mathematization of reality. Modern science, in its quest to accurately predict phenomena, needed to develop physical-mathematical laws that would serve to explain the universe.

Philosophical consequences

With the scientific revolution, the influence of Aristotle and other classical authors is disappearing. Many of the new discoveries, in fact, occurred when trying to correct the errors detected in the works of these classics.

On the other hand, the very concept of science underwent an evolution. From that moment on, it is the phenomena that come to occupy the central place in scientific research.

Religious consequences

Although, for the historical moment, the Church continued to be an authority in all areas of life, its influence on science was running the same fate as that of the classics.

Scientists claim independence from any authority, including the religious one. For them, the last word corresponded to reason and not belief.

Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment

The consequences described above grew stronger over time. The primacy of reason and the human being over dogmas was penetrating part of the society of the time, leading to a current of thought destined to change the world: the Enlightenment.

This, daughter of the scientific revolution, began in the middle of the 18th century. The thinkers who spread it considered that knowledge was essential to combat ignorance, superstition and tyranny. In this way, it was not just a philosophical movement, but it led to a political one.

References

Navarro Cordón, Juan Manuel; Pardo, José Luis. The Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution. Recovered from Philosophy.net
Basque Government Department of Education. The Scientific Revolution. Retrieved from hiru.eus
Lara, Vonne. Isaac Newton, the man connected to the Universe. Obtained from hypertextual.com
Hatch, Robert A. The Scientific Revolution. Retrieved from users.clas.ufl.edu
History. Scientific Revolution. Retrieved from history.com
Nguyen, Tuan C. A Short History of the Scientific Revolution. Retrieved from thoughtco.com
The Economic Time. Definition of 'Scientific Revolution'. Retrieved from economictimes.indiatimes.com
Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. Scientific Revolution. Retrieved from encyclopedia.com

SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION: CHARACTERISTICS AND CONSEQUENCES - HISTORY - 2025