The impact of the scientific revolution: a brief history of the  (Page 2/6)

Science and philosophy before the revolution

In immediate contrast to modern times, only a few of Europe’s academics at the beginning of the scientificrevolution and the end of the sixteenth century considered themselves to be “scientists.” The words “natural philosopher”carried much more academic clout and so the majority of the research on scientific theory was conducted not in the scientificrealm per se, but in philosophy, where “scientific methods” like empiricism and teleology were promoted widely. In the 17th century,empiricism and teleology existed as remnants of medieval thought that were utilized by philosophers such as William of Ockham, anempiricist (d. 1349), Robert Boyle (Hall, p 172), a 17th century chemist, teleologist and mechanist, and by the proponents of Platoand Aristotle (1st century teleologists and abstractionists). Both empiricism, as the theory that reality consists solely of what onephysically experiences, and teleology, as the idea that phenomena exist only because they have a purpose (i.e. because God wills themto be so), generally negated the necessity of fact-gathering, hypothesis writing, and controlled experimentation that became suchan integral part of modern chemistry and biology at the beginning of the 17th century. In other words, the study of science beforethe scientific revolution was so concentrated on philosophy (such as Aristotle’s conception of “ideas” as ultimate truths) as topreclude the development of a scientific method that would necessitate the creation of an informed hypothesis to be tested.Certain medieval philosophers, however, such as Roger Bacon (1214-1294; no relation to Francis), did emphasize the necessity ofcontrolled experimentation in coming to a theoretical conclusion, but they were few and far between, and generally failed tocorrectly use the experimental method in practice. For example, author Hall wrote that “Bacon [and other advocates were]guilty of misstatements of fact which the most trifling experiment would havecorrected” (Hall, p 163).

The advent of the scientific revolution – 17th century

A. R. Hall, in his book The Scientific Revolution 1500-1800, made the observation that a main pointdividing scientific thought in the seventeenth century from that of the ancient Greeks and medieval Europeans was the choice ofquestions each group sought to answer through their methods of research or observation.