Pioneering Figures and the Scientific Method
Galileo Galilei
Galileo was undoubtedly one of the greatest scientists of the scientific revolution. He was the first person to study the sky with a telescope. He discovered craters and mountains on the Moon. He also found the moons that orbited Jupiter. He was also interested in how falling objects behaved, so he studied mechanics. Galileo also conducted experiments, wrote theories, and made observations. Along with all his achievements, he even invented the thermometer.
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton was an English Scientist. He published the book called Principia Mathematica. He simplified the studies of other scientists. He reviewed practically everything other scientists studied. He made theories, which were proven so many times that they were called laws. He had four of these laws. The first was the law of gravity. The other three were the laws of physics and motion. He also invented calculus.
Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes was a Dutch philosopher. He was also a mathematician, writer, and scientist. He believed that people should establish proof of the beliefs they had. He believed that things people believed should agree with the natural world.
The Scientific Method
The Scientific Method is an organized way of answering a science question. While different teachers and scientists have different versions of the Scientific Method, here are the typical six parts:
- Purpose – What do you want to learn?
- Research – Find out as much as you can.
- Hypothesis – Try to predict the answer to the problem. Another term for hypothesis is ‘educated guess’. This is usually stated like “If I…(do something) then…(this will occur)”
- Experiment – The fun part! Design a test or procedure to confirm or disprove your hypothesis.
- Analysis – Record what happened during the experiment. Also known as ‘data’.
- Conclusion – Review the data and check to see if your hypothesis was correct.
The scientific method is used all over the world every day to make new discoveries.
Science Before the Scientific Revolution
Before the Scientific Revolution, only priests investigated because they wouldn’t believe in the church if they didn’t. There was no investigation. The belief was Geocentric: Earth was the center of the universe. Science was a branch of Greek philosophy.
Plato vs. Aristotle
Plato believed in the otherworldly and that Earth was a reflection of imperfection. He didn’t believe in science or basic observation. Aristotle believed the world was real and worth studying. He believed in induction, proving, and testing, as well as generalized assumptions.
Romans took what Plato said and liked the idea. Romans didn’t actually know. Arabs translated it after the fall of Rome. Europeans translated that into Latin. Arab people were very advanced, so they began to test it. When Europeans saw Arabs, they wanted to be like them. That created the Scientific Revolution.
The Church’s Role
Before the Scientific Revolution
The Church wanted to maintain Plato’s ideas. They had a lot of power. They wanted to maintain their authority without questions.
During the Inquisition
They persecuted anyone who spoke out against the Church.
After the Scientific Revolution
They were hesitant to admit wrongdoing. They did not want to admit they were wrong. In 1993, they admitted Galileo was right. They struggled to maintain power and image.
The Scientific Method by Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon
Descartes decided to conduct a personal plan of investigation. But, for Descartes, even his personal observation of the “book of nature” (1, p. 7) was not sufficiently beyond doubt because of his concern about the “deception of the senses.” After consideration of all the previous methods of inquiry, Descartes decided that there must be a better way; and in his Discourse on Method he wrote, “I eventually reached the decision to study my own self, and choose the right path” (1, p. 7).
Descartes aspired to rebuild a new system of truth based upon an unquestionable first principle which, like the fulcrum of Archimedes, would allow him to “move the earth from its orbit and place it in a new orbit” (2, p. 23). The first principle that he finally felt was self-evident was summarized in the statement, “I think, therefore I am” (1). Descartes believed that he could then use his new method of reasoning to build on such a first principle, ultimately leading to the unification of all knowledge. The method developed by Descartes was based on the following rules: