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The Scientific Revolution

Introduction

The Scientific Revolution is a rather loose phrase historians use to describe a profound change in intellectual thought in the 16th and 17th centuries. This change, along with the discovery of the New World and the religious transformation of Europe, forms the dividing line between the medieval world and the early modern world. The New World and the Reformation belong mainly to the earlier 16th century, so in a sense the Scientific Revolution (which belongs more to the 17th century), completes the change.

It is not too much to say that science gets invented in the Scientific Revolution. The word scientia had long been in use, but it merely meant something like "knowledge." There was no notion of a discipline called Science, and no one described themselves as being scientists or scientific. By the early 1700s, there were Academies of Science, and the word "science" had the specific connotations that it still carries.

The change occurred in two major areas : biology and astronomy. The former was concerned with the basics of physiology and anatomy; the latter was concerned with the issue of the solar system. These (and other) developments tended to proceed along independent lines until the great scientific academies of the 18th century both brought them together and helped spread their findings to the rest of society.

The account I give here will be restricted to astronomy, and specifically to the attempt to explain the solar system. It is a clearer narrative than in other fields, and it clearly demonstrates the difficulties faced by the pioneers in every field.