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NATS 1760 – Lecture 8 - The Scientific Revolution Part 1
- The so-called Scientific Revolution occurred during the 16th
and 17th centuries, roughly around the same time as the
Renaissance
- Rather than treating economic and political factors as
context, Bernal views them as the sources of the scientific
revolution
- Most historical interpretations consider the ideas to be
central to the transformation
- Review: economic and political conditions in the transition
from Medieval feudalism to Renaissance capitalism
 The medieval agricultural revolution (ploughs and
horses, crop rotation, fertilizing) had increased crop
output and population
 Europe was a collection of states, not a centralized
empire like in Roman times
 Capitalism was emerging from feudalism, a shift from
a land based economy to a goods based economy
 International trade, using the oceans for transport, was
increasing
 Ancient knowledge was rediscovered after the reconquest of Islamic Spain, translations of ancient
sources become available in Europe
 Universities and court science drew on classical ideas
- Bernal highlights the transformation of the Feudal economy
- The feudal system had a loose collection of minor royalty
who owned land and maintained power through the use of
force, while producing a minor agricultural surplus and
generating revenue through taxation
- As trade, population and urbanization increased in the 15th
and 16th centuries, monarchs came to power in various areas,
relying on the support of an emerging class of merchants
(bourgeoisie)
- Trade increased for two primary reasons:
 Technical improvements in agriculture and cloth-making
allowed the production of a surplus
 Technical and theoretical developments in navigation
(shipbuilding, astronomy, telescope, clocks) allowed seafaring trade to increase distribution from the previously
land-based system (increasing the market and adding
New World – resources and Eastern luxury items to
European markets)
- Spain, Portugal, Holland and England benefited from the
new trade routes as they had the most developed sea
technology
- The increase in trade led to the production of surplus capital,
and some of this capital was invested in science and
technology (state and commercial support of science)
Marxism in Theory
- It is helpful to look at some of the Marxist underpinnings of
Bernal’s analysis
- For Marxists, society evolves through stages of exploitation,
communal property and the exploitation of slaves, feudal
land ownership and the exploitation of serfs, and bourgeois
(capitalist) private property and the exploitation of the
proletariat (wage workers without property)
o This is the transformation from “forced services” to
“money payments” Bernal mentions
o The Capitalist owns the means of production (e.g. the
factory), the wage-labourer sells work to capitalist, the
product of the factory is owned by the capitalist, who
sells it for profit
o The labourer is “alienated” from his or her labour,
dividing the natural relationship between worker and
product. This is a negative term, so you can expect that
Marx thinks it is a negative process in some way
o Eventually the proletariat will increase in size and
poverty, and will eventually overthrow the capitalists
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and communism will emerge, capitalism is only a stage
o Marx was a Hegelian, and he viewed history as a series
of transitions, where old systems would collapse and
new systems would emerge
o Note the role of science and technology to this process
 You don’t need advanced technology to divide
worker from product, all you need is to own land
and produce more than you consume
 Still, technology makes this easier, by increasing
production and making production too complex
for the individual to carry out
Bernal argues that scientific and economic changes in this
time period were interrelated
He also argues that the scientific, economic and technological
revolution is more important than agriculture, as it has the
potential for “indefinite advance”
In the beginning, the economic transformation from
feudalism to capitalism was more important to science than
the reverse
The rise of capitalism that made, “experimental science
possible and necessary”
Capitalism created the need for advancements, and
experimental science was oriented towards this need, even if
it took many years to realize this goal
Science is permanent, capitalism is temporary
Developments in trade and commerce (of interest to the
ruling classes) drove improvements in navigation through
astronomy, and challenged ancient authority
The need for compass, map and instruments in navigation led
to the creation of a mathematically trained craftsmen
Bernal links the new desire to know nature’s laws to the
desire to control nature, and links this to the new concern
with material wealth
This re-connects the practical and the abstract elements of
science that had been separated since classical times, through
economics
- Bernal links the ability to challenge scientific ideas to the
challenges to the “foundations of society” that were
happening at the time (economic and religious changes)
- Bernal stresses that the early stages of the revolution were
marked by buttressing one authority against another, rather
than creating new authority (Copernicus as last of the
ancients)
Professional Science
- scientists of the renaissance were often courtiers, or members
of the new bourgeoisie (doctors, lawyers, minor nobles and
clerics) combining science with other occupations
- most scientists believed that their work was to be practical,
and worked for private or state interests
Science, Art and Engineering During the Renaissance
- Two major scientific accomplishments of the revolution were
the complete anatomy of the human body offered by
Vesalius, and the reorientation of the cosmos by Copernicus
- Important books in chemistry, mining and botany were also
written in this period, many inspired by the voyages to new
lands that discovered new plants and animals never before
seen by the ancients
- The increase in wealth led to an interest in painting, sculpture
and music, and wealthy merchants and princes sponsored the
arts for prestige
- New artistic techniques were developed that contributed to
science, for example, the use of perspective and realism in
artistic representation (see slides)
- The drive for realism led to the collection of observations of
nature, technologies, animals and people to ensure accurate
depictions, and aided the emergence of descriptive science
- In medicine, there was a turn to more descriptive work rather
than the parroting of ancient sources
- Mining grew in economic importance, and with it the
chemical techniques for separating valuable metals
Astronomy and the Scientific Revolution
- Several factors contributed to the revolution in astronomy:
the demand for better navigation, the extensive body of
observations and mathematical structure of astronomy
allowed testing of hypotheses
- The key elements of the new astronomy, a moving Earth and
a sun-centered system, were around as far back as the
Greeks, these ideas were rediscovered and improved upon in
the scientific revolution
- Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) was born in Torun, in
northwest Poland.
- In 1512 he took up duties as a Canon in Catholic Church. He
published his most important work, De Revolutionibus
orbium coelestium on his deathbed, as he was concerned with
the possible religious repercussions of his ideas.
- Rediscovery of ancient texts led to the discovery of errors in
Ptolemy
- Ptolemaic astronomy had suffered from hundreds of years of
reinterpretation and expansion; it was now incredibly
complex and cumbersome.
- Copernicus sought to change all of this. His Earth was
spherical like Ptolemy’s, but it also rotated on its axis.
- Copernicus agreed that motion in the heavens should be
explained by a combination of circular uniform motions, but
he also held that the Earth was a mere speck in a universe
much larger than Ptolemy’s.
- The most significant departure of Copernican astronomy was
its assumption that the Earth and the known planets rotated
around the sun.
- It could also explain certain things quite well, for example, it
had been noted for centuries that Venus and Mercury were
always close to the sun.
- On the Ptolemaic system, this was explained by postulating
that Venus, Mercury and the sun rotated at different speeds
and in such a way that they always lined up with each other
- In the Copernican system there was no need for this
assumption, as Mercury and Venus were closer to the sun, so
from the Earth they would appear to be close.
- In addition, the Copernican system provided a simpler
explanation of retrograde motion, something that was
explained in a complex way in Ptolemaic astronomy (see
illustrations)
- Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), a Danish astronomer who was
renowned for his precise naked eye observations of the
heavens
- Tycho contributed to the decline of Ptolemaic astronomy
through his observation of a new star in 1572, and a comet in
1577, led him to question Aristotle’s claim that the heavens
were immutable and the planets moved on crystalline
spheres.
- Tycho proposed a geocentric model that had all of the planets
revolving around the sun, and the sun revolving around the
Earth (see illustration)
- Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), mathematician and a supporter
of the Copernicus
- Kepler worked for 6 years, using Tycho’s observational data
in an attempt to reconcile the orbit of Mars to circles
- The result of his labor was the claim that the planets traveled
in elliptical orbits at non-uniform velocities, a claim contrary
to Copernican theory and ancient astronomical assumptions
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
- Like Aristotle, was a man of many interests, mathematics,
astronomy, mechanics, and instrumentation to name a few
- He held various professorships during his lifetime, and he
was even appointed “superintendent of the waters” in charge
of land drainage schemes in Florence in 1630.
- His astronomical work generated the most controversy, and it
all started with a Dutch toy, the spyglass
- It seems a ridiculously simple thing, to turn a telescope to the
sky and start making observations, yet the payback from this
“simple” move was breathtaking and revolutionary.
- Galileo’s telescopic observations of the night sky produced a
new host of criticisms of Ptolemaic and Aristotelian
cosmology, and renewed support for the Copernican system.
- Jupiter had moons in orbit, something that was forbidden in a
universe where all celestial bodies rotated around the Earth.
- Craters and mountains on the moon, and spots on the sun
revealed imperfection in what was previously thought to be a
perfect celestial realm
- Venus was shown to have phases, much like the moon. In the
geocentric system Venus is in line with the sun at all times
and only appears as a crescent
- In the heliocentric system it goes behind the sun and can
appear nearly full, which the telescope revealed.
- The planets appeared as circles in the telescopes, small discs,
whereas the stars still twinkled, implying that they were at a
great distance away, just as Copernican theory predicted.
- Initially, these observations were disputed, looking through a
telescope is a new way of seeing
- Like any other new way of seeing; the viewer must interpret
observations
- All manner of explanations were given as to why Galileo’s
telescopic observations were invalid, for example, the claim
that the telescope distorted visual appearances
- For a time these objections were influential. Many critics
could not see what Galileo saw with a trained eye.
- For example, Galileo had to observe changing shadows over
weeks infer the existence of mountains on the moon
- A similar amount of time was needed to “see” the moons of
Jupiter. Some critics simply refused to look through the
device
- However, terrestrial experiments were useful in proving the
basic soundness of the technology. For example, a distant
ship could be spotted on the horizon, and when it arrived in
port, its markings could be confirmed
- Thus it was possible to slowly win over converts through a
process of controlled demonstration and repeated use.
- Galileo’s success with astronomical observations brought
him fame and fortune, he went from an obscure position to a
professorship at a powerful university
- It also brought him the enmity of the Church and the
Inquisition. The Roman Catholic Church condemned
Copernicanism in 1616, due to its irreligious implications,
and Galileo was censured from holding, defending or
teaching it.
- Built on this success in astronomy, given permission by the
Pope to write a book comparing the different astronomical
systems
- He produced was a scathing condemnation of Ptolemaic and
Aristotelian astronomy, written in the vernacular Italian for
mass consumption
- The Church had officially “adopted” these systems as part of
their faith, and conflict was inevitable
- Galileo was forced by the inquisition to publicly recant his
Copernican beliefs
- In one important sense, Galileo was a victim of his own
success, he was not an obscure professor at a backwater
university
- He was a rising star in the Renaissance world and a favourite
of the court and the church, his work could not go
unchallenged
- He was also a victim of timing, the Protestant reformation
had shaken the Roman Catholic Church, and his rebellion
was unwelcome.