New Directions in Thought
The Scientific Attack on Superstition
Knowledge is the antidote to
fear. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Age of Inquiry
• 16th and 17th Century great leaps forward
for science
• Period is significant due to the number of
new discoveries and those who followedup on research and new ideas
• Significant departure from the
superstitions of the past
Cultural Shift
• Emerging idea that genuinely new
knowledge about nature and humankind
could be discovered
• Religious, social, political conflict as a
result
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
• Polish astronomer
• Published On the Revolutions of the
Heavenly Spheres (1543)
• Springboard for ALL astronomy that
came after
• Challenged geocentrism
• The SUN was the center of the universe
… Earth MOVED
Copernicus (left)
Next Slide
Matejko Jan (1838-1893)
Astronomer Copernicus, or
Conversation with God
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
• Brahe built things to measure
Copernican principals though he still
thought system was geocentric
• Kepler followed Brahe (apprentice)
– Orbits of planets were elliptical
– Planets move at different speeds
– Longer to orbit based on distance from sun
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
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Experimental method
Law of inertia
Discovered first four moons of Jupiter
Evidence to support Copernican theory
Refined telescope
Thermometer
Universe was subject to mathematical
laws
Excommunication and House Arrest
• Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of
the World (1632)
– Openly lampooned traditional church views
– Galileo was tried for heresy by the papal
inquisition
Andreas Vesalius (1514 – 1564)
• Vesalius was a famous anatomist and a well
known physician who wrote of one of the
most influential books on human anatomy
called The Fabric of the Human Body.
– This described the workings of the human body.
• Vesalius is often referred to as the founder
of modern human anatomy
William Harvey (1578 – 1657)
• English physician
• Was the first in the Western world to
describe correctly and in exact detail the
systemic circulation and properties of blood
being pumped around the body by the heart.
Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)
• the philosopher (scientist) should proceed
through inductive reasoning from fact to
axiom to law.
• "knowledge is power”
• Scientific experimentation must be used to
further man
• Scientific method
Renes Descartes (1596 – 1650)
• French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer
who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic.
• He has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy,"
and much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response
to his writings, which continue to be studied closely to this
day.
• Descartes' influence in mathematics is also apparent, the
Cartesian coordinate system allowing geometric shapes to
be expressed in algebraic equations being named for him.
• He is accreditied as the father of analytical geometry.
• Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific
Revolution.
Cogito, ergo sum
• I think therefore I am
• 1637. Discours de la
méthode (Discourse on the
Method)
Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727)
• an English physicist, mathematician,
astronomer, natural philosopher,
alchemist, and theologian
• one of the most influential men in human
history.
• His Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia
Mathematica, published in 1687, is
considered to be the most influential
book in the history of science.
Principia Mathematica
• In this work, Newton described universal
gravitation and the three laws of motion,
laying the groundwork for classical
mechanics, which dominated the
scientific view of the physical Universe
for the next three centuries and is the
basis for modern engineering
King of the Lab
• 2005 survey of scientists in Britain's Royal
Society asking who had the greater effect on
the history of science, Newton or Albert
Einstein. Newton was deemed the more
influential
Robert Boyle (1627 – 1691)
• Irish theologian, natural philosopher, chemist, physicist,
inventor, and early gentleman scientist, noted for his work
in physics and chemistry.
• He is best known for the formulation of Boyle's law.
• Although his research and personal philosophy clearly has
its roots in the alchemical tradition, he is largely regarded
today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the
founders of modern chemistry. Among his works, The
Sceptical Chymist is seen as a cornerstone book in the
field of chemistry
Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)
• English philosopher, remembered today
for his work on political philosophy.
• 1651 book Leviathan
• His account of human nature as selfinterested cooperation has proved to be
an enduring theory in the field of
philosophical anthropology
People are generally selfish…
Leviathan
John Locke (1632 – 1704)
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Natural Rights
Consent of the Governed
Tabula rasa
Second Treatise of Civil Government
Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Basis for Declaration of Independence
and French Revolution
Time Line
Philosophiæ Naturalis
Principia Mathematica
(1687) Newton
On the Fabric of the Human
Body (1543) Vesalius
(1661) The
Sceptical
Chymist, Boyle
Second Treatise of
Civil Government
(1690) Locke
Galileo, Dialogue on the
Two Chief Systems of the
World (1632)
On the Revolutions
of the Heavenly
Spheres (1543)
(1651) Leviathan ,
Hobbes
1637 (Discourse on
the Method)
Descartes
Kepler, The New
Astronomy (1609)
Scientific Societies
• Academy of Experiments in Florence
(1657)
• Royal Society of London (1660)
• French Academy of Science (1667)
• Berlin Academy of Science (1700)
• These societies met regularly to hear
papers, review data on experiments and
generally share ideas
Lunar Society
• Dinner club and informal intellectual
society
• 1765-1783
• Amongst those who attended meetings more or
less regularly were Matthew Boulton, Erasmus
Darwin, Samuel Galton Junior, James Keir,
Joseph Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood, James
Watt, John Whitehurst and William Withering.
More “lunatics”
• More peripheral characters and
correspondents included Sir Richard
Arkwright, John Baskerville, Thomas Beddoes,
Thomas Day, Richard Lovell Edgeworth,
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Anna
Seward, William Small, John Smeaton, William
Strutt, Thomas Wedgwood, John Wilkinson,
Joseph Wright, James Wyatt, Samuel Wyatt,
and Staffordshire member of parliament and
investor John Levett.
Superstition Persists
• Despite the new discoveries and
evidences produced by observation and
scientific research, most Europeans
clung to superstitions
• Preoccupation with sin, death, and the
devil
• Almost all Europeans (even philosophers
and scientists) believed in demons
Witch-Hunts
• Between 1400-1700 courts sentenced
nearly 100,000 people to death for
harmful magic (malificum)
• Role of Reformation?
• Increased violence resulted in fear and
“scapegoating”
Village Origins
• Cunning folk – helped people cope with
disaster (elders, widows) offered
consolation and experience … magic
• Church needed to vilify these people so
they could become the authority
Influence of the Clergy
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Transubstantiation
Annointing
Exorcism
Good Magic (priest, church sanctioned,
from God)
• Bad Magic (any NON-church “magic”)
Women
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80% of convicted “witches” were women
Misogyny
Sexual fear
Older women, widows, property
Circumstantial?
End of Witch-Hunts?
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End of 17th century, witch-hunts subsided
Scientific world view
Advances in medicine
Protestants AND Catholics guilty of witchhunts, BUT Protestantism put devil in more
manageable perspective (also less
sacramental magic)
• Even devil was part of God’s plan