Scientific Awakening

1
Scientific Awakening

• A directional change in thinking

2
Scientific Awakening

• Definition
• Period of time when people began to define
  scientific method and apply it to search for
  truth

3
Basic Definitions

• Science A process of understanding and
  organizing knowledge
• Described nature
• Technology A combination of skills and
  creativity which are mastered in their
  environment
• Art and technology were identical

4
Scientific Awakening Steps

• Merging science and technology
• Technology previously independent of science
• Use of mathematics
• Use of experimentation and inductive reasoning
• Science separated from philosophy
• Basic ancient truths were questioned
• Focus on physics, not ethics and metaphysics
• History viewed as progressive

5

• "The rise of the scientific spirit was a notable
  feature of the Renaissance and, especially, just
  afterwards men no longer accepted without
  question the opinions of the ancients about the
  universe and the laws governing the natural
  world dogma was subjected to experiment, and
  when it failed to survive the test it was
  rejected and new theories were formulated. Thus
  science in the modern sense was born, and rapid
  progress was made in mathematics, physics,
  chemistry, and biology. But the immediate
  consequences for technology were confined to a
  few specialized fields in the main,
  technological progress still depended upon the
  use of empirical methods by practical men. On
  the whole, up to 1750 science probably gained
  more from technology than vice versa."
• T.K. Derry and T. I. Williams, A Short History
  of Technology

6
Scientific Awakening (Overview)
7
Ptolemy Model of the Universe
Moon
Earth
Mercury
Motion of Mercury
8
Tycho Brahes Model
Earth not at center of circles
9
Copernicus

• Realized the earth turns on an axis
• Proposed a solar centered system
• Book of Revolutions

10
Copernicus

• Problems
• Not all epicycles could be eliminated
• Common sense seems to contradict
• 1000 mph wind
• No sense of spinning
• Scriptures seem to contradict

11

• And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed,
  until the people had avenged themselves upon
  their enemies. Is not this written in the book
  of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst
  of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a
  whole day.
• Joshua 1013

12

• And thus, according to his word the earth goeth
  back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun
  standeth still yea, and behold, this is so for
  surely it is the earth that moveth and not the
  sun.
• - Helaman 1215

13

• According to the church, propositions which are
  stated but not rigorously demonstrated, such as
  the Copernican system itself, were not condemned
  outright, if they seemed to contradict Holy
  Scripture they were merely relegated to the rank
  of working hypotheses with an implied wait
  and see if you bring proof, then, but only then,
  we shall have to reinterpret Scripture in the
  light of this necessity.
• Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, p442

14
Galileo

• Called the successor to Archimedes
• Study of pendulums
• Chandelier in a cathedral

15
Galileos Contributions

• Linked science and math with observation
• Established math as language of science

16
Galileo

• Truth cannot be found in the book of Aristotle
  but in the book of Nature and the book of Nature
  is written in the language of mathematics.
• - Galileo

17
Galileos Contributions

• Linked science and math with observation
• Established math as language of science
• Engineering skills
• Manufacturing
• Music and art capabilities
• Optic developments
• Founded modern astronomy
• Secularized science

18
Galileo

• God is the author of two great booksthe book of
  scripture and the book of nature. These cannot
  be in conflict so any apparent contradictions
  come from fallible human interpretationsScripture
  is a book about how to go to heaven not a book
  about how heaven goes.
• - Galileo

19
Galileo

• I do not feel obliged to believe that the same
  God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and
  intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
• - Galileo Galilei

20
Galileos Trial

• Court scientist to the Medici family
• Many discussions about Copernican theory
• Taught Copernican theory widely as truth
• Ordered by the church to teach it as a theory
• Wrote a book on the theory
• Three people discussing
• Court on defiance of previous church order
• Sentenced to house arrest and silence

21
Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion

• The orbits of the planets are ellipses,
• with the Sun at one focus of the ellipse.

Major axis
II. The line joining the planet to the Sun sweeps
out equal areas in equal times as the planet
travels around the ellipse.
III. The ratio of the squares of the
revolutionary periods for two planets is equal
to the ratio of the cubes of their semi-major
axes (half the major axis).
22
Francis Bacon

• Court Chancellor
• Development of scientific method
• Died from pneumonia

23

• "Method is like a pathway and if the pathway
  leads in the right direction, you will eventually
  get to the truth. Bacon's pathway was induction
  combined with experimentation... Genius like
  Aristotle is the ability to run quickly.
  However if a genius is on the wrong pathway, he
  will never be able to come to the truth since he
  will just move more quickly in the wrong
  direction."
• Bacon

24
Francis Bacon

• "This is the foundation of all, for we are not to
  imagine or suppose, but to discover what nature
  does or may be made to do."
• Bacon, Novum Organum

25
Francis Bacon

• 1. Some people are like ants they just build up
  a store of supplies (information or facts).
• 2. Some are like spiders they build a complex
  system that is beautiful to behold (but it is
  made from the spider's own internal stuff and not
  materials from nature. It is not related to the
  real world.)
• Some are like honey bees they take materials
  from nature and convert it into materials that
  are useful for humankind (this is the model we
  should all pursue.)
• Bacon

26
Bacons Truths

• Sensory perception (empirical knowledge) more
  reliable in examining the world than pure logic
  or theology.
• Manipulation of the world instead of just
  observation.
• Principle of cause and effect accepted as
  inviolate.
• Theory developed after experiments were
  interpreted. (Inductive reasoning given
  precedence over deductive reasoning.)
• Interpretation of data to be unbiased.
• Well supported and accepted theories become laws.

27
Renè Descartes

• Foundations of analytical geometry
• Discourse on Method
• Cogito ergo sum
• (I think, therefore I am)
• Dualism (mind-body problem)
• Reductionism
• Banned by Catholic Church

28
Renè Descartes

• Results of Descartes philosophy
• Basis of French science (theory)
• Scrutiny of ancient philosophers
• Excitement in scientific investigation

29
"Being and Doing"

• To be is to do
• -Socrates
• To do is to be
• -Descartes
• Do be do be do
• -Sinatra

30
Descartes
31
Blaise Pascal

• Skeptic who recognized limits of empiricism
• Pensées
• Converted to science by Descartes
• Strong experimentalist
• Discoveries perpetuate human progress
• Contributions

32

• "In the Thoughts it is fully expounded as the
  difference between the geometrical and the
  intuitive temperaments. By geometrical, Pascal
  means the mind when it works with exact
  definitions and abstractions in science or
  mathematics by intuitive, the mind when it works
  with ideas and perceptions not capable of exact
  definition. A right-angle triangle or
  gravitation is a perfectly definite idea poetry
  or love or good government is not definable. And
  this lack of definition is not due to lack of
  correct information it comes from the very
  nature of the subject."
• Barzun, Jacques, From Dawn to Decadence,
  Perennial, 2000, p216-218.

33
Isaac Newton

• The greatest scientist who ever lived
• Disinterested student
• Time at the farm
• Cambridgeprofessor of math
• Never married
• Manic depressive

34
Isaac Newton

• Avoided publishing findings due to criticism
• Principia Mathematica
• Discovery of gravity
• Greatest scientific work
• Discoveries in math and optics
• Developed Calculus
• Introduced Modeling

35
Isaac Newton

• In the preceding books I have laid down the
  principlesthat are the laws of certain
  motions, and power or forcesIt remains that from
  the same principles I now demonstrate the frame
  of the System of the World.
• - Newton

36
Isaac Newton

• If I have seen further than others, it is by
  standing on the shoulders of Giants.
• -Sir Isaac Newton

37

• "Newton was driven with a zeal that would unnerve
  the most devoted scholar experimenting for days
  without food or sleep staring at the sun until
  the image continued to burn unrelievedly in his
  head probing his eye with a darning needle to
  investigate optical effects. He set out to test
  the limits of the physical world and in the
  process often discovered his own."
• Isacoff, Stuart, Temperament, Vintage Books,
  2001, p. 10.

38
Isaac Newton's belief in God and the concept of
gravity

• To clarify his thoughts on the subject, sometime
  around 1720 Newton wrote what he perceived as a
  personal credo, a form of amalgamation of science
  and religiona guide, perhaps, for future
  explorers. This included a clear picture of the
  role he saw for Christ in the universal scheme of
  thingsnot least the function of the spiritual
  body of Jesus as the medium by which celestial
  mechanics was maintained. Jesus was beloved of
  God before the foundation of the world, he
  wrote, and had glory with the father before the
  world began and was the principle of the creation
  the agent by whom God created all things in
  this world. To summarise, the spiritual body of
  Jesus, the first created, was the facilitator for
  the creation of the physical universe, provided
  the means via which the cosmos continued to
  function mechanically, and acted as a medium via
  which forces acted at a distance without any
  visible, tangible, measurable mechanism.
• John White, Isaac Newton The Last Sorcerer

39
Chemistry

• Alchemists
• Robert Boyle
• Antoine Lavoisier

40

• "Not for nothing has Lavoisier become known as
  the Newton of chemistry. Yet he was no
  single-minded pioneer. During his brief fifty
  years of life he not only established modern
  chemistry, but also found time to occupy
  (simultaneously) several top-level administrative
  positions, as well as contributing technological
  advances in a number of disparate fields
  ballooning, the mineralogical mapping of France,
  urban street lighting, the Paris water supply,
  the efficiency of gunpowder and a full-scale
  model farm, to name but a few."
• Strathern, Paul, Mendeleyev's Dream, New York
  Berkley Books, 2000, p.225.

41
Consequences of Scientific Revolution

• Community of scientists formed
• Royal Society
• Papers were read and published
• Scientists subjected to critical audience
• Science accepted as the preferred method of
  getting "truth"

42
Thank You
43
Scientific Awakening
44
Euclid vs. Riemann

• Euclidean geometry a priori assumptions
• 1. The shortest distance between two points is a
  straight line.
• 2. Two parallel lines never cross.
• 3. Two non-parallel lines cross at one and only
  one point.
• - Newton then derived that mass is a constant
  that relates time, length, and speed or
  acceleration.
• Riemann geometry a priori assumptions
• 1. The shortest distance between two points is a
  curve.
• 2. Two parallel lines cross at infinity.
• - Einstein then derived that mass is a variable
  that depends upon time, length, and speed or
  acceleration.
• From H. Clay Gorton, The Transitory Nature of
  Telestial Knowledge

45

• "All over Europe, from Poland to southern Italy,
  a new mindset was gelling at the time of the
  scientific revolution. An indication of this is
  that several important discoveries were made, all
  but simultaneously, by different individuals who
  could not possibly have known of each other's
  work, let alone resorted to plagiarism. Here
  indeed was a new development. Science didn't
  just advance as a result of great discoveries by
  great men. Just as important as these individual
  geniuses was the advent of a new way of thinking
  which could lead several thinkers to the same
  discovery at once... One example will suffice.
  Galileo completed his geometric sector for
  calculating the trajectory of projectiles (cannon
  balls) in 1597. Just a year later, an uncannily
  similar device was produced independently in
  London by the Elizabethan mathematician Thomas
  Hood... Meanwhile the Dutch mathematician Dirk
  Borcouts, who corresponded with Descartes, was
  also working on his own bronze sector for
  calculating projectiles."
• Strathern, Paul, Mendeleyev's Dream, New York
  Berkley Books, 2000, p.132.

46

• "Science was developing into a body of knowledge
  which frequently prompted those working within it
  in the same direction. This has led to the
  understanding that scientific discovery is to a
  certain extent predetermined. If 'inflammable
  air' had not been discovered by Cavendish (or
  Boyle, or whoever), it would sooner or later have
  been discovered by someone. Science could now be
  viewed as a cultural-historical phenomenon,
  rather than simply the creation of individual
  geniuses working alone."
• Strathern, Paul, Mendeleyev's Dream, New York
  Berkley Books, 2000, p.216-217.

47
Faith and Empiricism

• And now as I said concerning faith faith is not
  to have a perfect knowledge of things therefore
  if ye have faith ye hope fort things which are
  not seen, which are true.
• - Alma 3221

48

• "An ambitious young journalist had submitted a
  paper to the Academie, in the hope of gaining
  election to this prestigious body. The paper had
  been on the nature of fire... According to the
  paper, this the extinguishing of a flame in an
  enclosed space happened because the air heated
  by the flame expanded, and thus pressure mounted
  around the flame, diminishing its size, until
  finally it disappeared... It fell to the
  Academician Lavoisier to inform the misguided
  journalist that his paper was wrong. The
  journalist felt deeply insulted by Lavoisier's
  dismissive rejection. The journalist's name was
  Jean-Paul Marat. By 1791 Marat had become one of
  the leading members of the Jacobins, the
  extremist advocates of what would soon become the
  Terror. In 1791 Marat publicly attacked
  Lavoisier in the Jacobin newspaper... Lavoisier
  was arrested. Despite the frantic efforts of Mme
  Lavoisier, her husband was brought to trial. The
  judge expressed his opinion that 'The Republic
  has no need of scientists', and sentenced
  Lavoisier to death. He was guillotined the same
  day."
• Strathern, Paul, Mendeleyev's Dream, New York
  Berkley Books, 2000, p.240-241.

49
Electricity

• William Gilbert
• Stephen Gray
• Benjamin Franklin

50
Faith and Empiricism

• Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
  the evidence of things not seen.
• - Hebrews 111

51
Faith and Empiricism
Perfect (Spiritual) Knowledge
What is hoped for
Faith
What is seen
Scientific (Empirical) Knowledge
52

• "The development in the West of the concept of a
  unified natural science depended on the
  preparation of the ground through monotheism, so
  that one can understand more easily the reason
  that modern science arose in seventeenth-century
  Europe rather than, say, in China."
• Gerald Holton, Einstein, History, and Other
  Passions

53

• The heliocentric idea of the universe,
  crystallized in a system by Copernicus, and
  restated in modern form by Kepler, altered the
  climate of thought not by what it expressly
  stated, but by what it implied. Its implications
  were certainly not conscious in Copernicus mind,
  and acted on his successors by equally insidious,
  subterranean channels. They were all negative,
  all destructive to the solid edifice of medieval
  philosophy, undermining the foundations on which
  it rested.
• Arthur Koestler, the Sleepwalkers, p. 218.

54

• "It Ptolemy's theory made a very complex
  structure, and at last the mind rebelled at more
  and more contortions. William of Occam's
  principle of economy, that the best explanation
  is the one that calls for the least number of
  assumptions, was an argument against Ptolemy, in
  addition to the awkward facts. It impelled
  Copernicus to revise not destroy the system,
  by supposing the sun to be the center instead of
  the Earth. He was thereby able to reduce the
  epicycles from 84 to 30. But even his scheme is
  not quite sun-centered. His work, published in
  the mid-16C after his death, proposed an
  important change indeed, but it was not the
  shattering blow it is commonly taken for it
  raised new difficulties, and those who rejected
  it were not simply diehards refusing evidence.
  Kopernik (to use his proper name) was a devoted
  admirer of the ancients and obsessed with the
  perfection of circles and spheres. Such notions
  (and several others) had to be abandoned before
  the modern planetary system could be suggested
  and tested he did not bring this about
  single-handed."
• Barzun, Jacques, From Dawn to Decadence,
  Perennial, 2000, p192.

55

• "What convinced him Copernicus to make this
  the heliocentric model the cornerstone of his
  argument, and eventually persuaded his followers,
  was that he thereby produced a model of the
  planetary system in which the relative locations
  and order of orbits were no longer arbitrary but
  followed by necessity. In short, Copernicus is a
  case study of the privileging of an aesthetically
  based theory above all, the aesthetics of
  necessity and even of the temporary disbelief
  in 'data' that would appear to disprove a favored
  theory...That is the meaning behind a remark
  Einstein made before the test of General
  Relativity 'Now, I am fully satisfied, and I do
  not doubt any more the correctness of the whole
  system, may the observation of the eclipse
  succeed or not. The sense of the thing is too
  evident.'"
• Gerald Holton, Einstein, History, and Other
  Passions

56

• "Now man will at last measure the power of his
  mind on a true scale, and will realize that god,
  who founded everything in the world on the norm
  of quantity, also has endowed man with a mind
  which can comprehend these norms!"
• Kepler

57
Galileo

• "Galileo's invention amounted to secularizing
  science, submerging the qualitative in favor of
  the quantitative as the earmark of truth, and
  elevating experimental checks from illustrations
  of the value of a theory to the test of its
  probability."
• Gerald Holton, Einstein, History, and Other
  Passions

58

• Looking back, we see that two principles should
  have been considered by the theological judges of
  the new astronomy. First, the traditional
  interpretation was to be held unless solid
  reasons dictated otherwise. Second, in matters
  of pure physical science, the Scriptures are not
  the criterion for establishing one system or
  forbidding another, since they do not teach
  science. The correct theological procedure would
  have been to combine these two principles into a
  practical and valid norm for solving what appear
  to be discrepancies between Scripture and
  science. Had this been done, the opinion that
  the Scriptures confirmed the suns motion would
  have been held as more probable even after
  Galileos discoveries. By staying within the
  realm of probability, there would have been room
  left for another interpretation which would have
  been permissible, though less probable, namely,
  that the Scripture texts in no way represented
  scientific affirmations and thus were irrelevant
  to the scientific question.
• Jerome J. Langford in Galileo, Science and the
  Church

59

• If a mans proofs must be so overwhelming that
  others will speedily accept them against
  established authority, then few independent
  ideas, especially in science, will ever be
  brought forth, for most really new ideas require
  the research and the contributions of many men
  before rigorous proofs are to be found. I think
  that all that should be required is sufficient
  weight in the mind of the advocate himself that
  he will offer himself up to possible general
  ridicule. Galileos proofs had at least that
  much weight for him before he spoke out, and
  rightly so his two attempted physical proofs,
  though not conclusive, were far stronger than
  many of his critics will allow them to be. I
  refer to the seasonal variation of sunspot paths
  and to Galileos theory of the tides. It would
  indeed be difficult to explain either of those
  phenomena without attributing some motion to the
  earth.
• Stillman Drake in the foreword of Galileo,
  Science and the Church.

60

• "Galileo's description of his experiments was
  quite skimpy by today's standards...Reading his
  dialogs, you never quite know if you are reading
  about Aristotelian observations or Platonist
  thought experiments....He left historians of
  science wondering whether he actually did the
  experiment... What surprises us is what Galileo
  said happened just after he released the two
  balls. The lighter ball, he said, started out a
  little bit faster than the heavy ball. Then the
  heavy ball caught up. That sounds crazy in the
  light of known physics. So physicists reran the
  experiment in front of a slow-motion movie
  camera. An assistant held two four-inch-diameter
  iron and wooden balls at arm's length, as Galileo
  would have held them to clear the wide balustrade
  at the top of the Pisa tower. A close study of
  the film proved that when someone tries to drop
  both balls at once, their strained muscles fool
  them. They consistently let go of the lighter
  one first. So what Galileo accurately reported
  is what really would have happened, and we are
  left with no doubt that he actually did the
  experiment."
• John Lienhard, The Engines of Our Ingenuity,
  p.73.

61

• "'So far as I know, no one has yet pointed out
  that the distances traversed, during equal
  intervals of time, by a body falling from rest,
  stand to one another in the same ratio as the odd
  numbers beginning with unity.'....To have put it
  this way means that what counted most for Galileo
  was after all not the limited and perhaps rather
  silly case of a falling stone or a rolling ball,
  but the demonstration that terrestrial phenomena,
  of which these are examples, can be explained by
  the operation of integers just as the
  Pythagoreans had dreamed (and as quantum
  physicists have proved for atomic behavior).
  Galileo, too, was still engaged in a search for
  cosmic truths, a tendency which, for better or
  worse, had to be reined in as science evolved
  further."
• Gerald Holton, Einstein, History, and Other
  Passions

62

• "Without a theory the facts are silent.
• F. A. Hayek (Quoted in John Keegan, A History
  of Warfare, 1993, 6)

63

• Bacon stated that he wanted to bring about the
  true and lawful marriage of the empirical and
  rational faculties, the unkind and ill-starred
  separation of which has thrown into confusion all
  the affairs of the human family.
• - Quoted in Stephen F. Mason A History of the
  Sciences

64

• "It is well to observe the force and virtue and
  consequence of inventions, and these are nowhere
  to be seen more conspicuously than in those three
  which were unknown to the ancients, and of which
  the origins, though recent, are obscure and
  inglorious namely, printing, gunpowder, and the
  magnet. For the three have changed the whole face
  and state of things throughout the world."
• Sir Francis Bacon (1620) From McGrath, In the
  Beginning, Anchor Books, 2002, p.5.

65

• "These 'idols of the mind' false notions or
  prejudices, as he Bacon called them, came in
  four distinct categories. The Idols of the Tribe
  have their foundation in human nature itself...
  For instance, there is a universal propensity for
  oversimplification. We assume a greater order in
  things that actually is the case. Likewise,
  spectacular or sensational occurrences, which may
  well be unrepresentative, tend to influence our
  judgment more than routine ones. The Idols of
  the Cave are the idols of the individual. These
  are prejudices and intellectual peculiarities
  which result from our particular upbringing,
  education and experience. For instance, when
  assessing things one person may concentrate on
  likenesses, another on differences one on
  details, another on the whole... Idols of the
  Market Place result from our interaction with
  others... These are the errors due to our use of
  language. Such errors do not necessarily result
  from the misuse of language, they may even result
  from the language itself... Bacon's fourth false
  notion he named Idols of the Theatre. These
  consisted of the various dogmas of philosophies.
  He included amongst these idols many principles
  and axioms in science which by tradition,
  credulity, and negligence have come to be
  received."
• Strathern, Paul, Mendeleyev's Dream, New York
  Berkley Books, 2000, p.150-151.

66

• Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament
  and adversity is the blessing of the New.
• Sir Francis Bacon

67

• Now the empire of man over things is founded on
  the arts and sciences alone for nature is only to
  be commanded by obeying her.
• - Sir Francis Bacon

68

• If you start with certainties you will end in
  doubts, but if you begin with doubts, you will
  end in certainties.
• - Sir Francis Bacon

69

• Truth emerges more readily from error than from
  confusion.
• - Bacon

70

• "Galileo did more than anyone to establish the
  methods of the new science, and Francis Bacon
  framed its philosophical stance. Bacon directly
  contradicted the Platonists' belief that truth is
  to be found in the human mind when he said, ?That
  which nature may produce or bear should be
  discovered, not imagined or invented....' After
  1600 Europe gained two new tools of inquiry, both
  of which led away from medieval thinking. The
  shift to observational science was certainly
  strengthened by new kinds of measuring
  instruments. clocks, telescope, thermometer,
  microscope, etc. But a second major force was
  also afoot, and its relation to the shift in
  scientific method was more complex. New forms of
  practical mathematics offered lay people means to
  perform calculations."
• John Lienhard, The Engines of Our Ingenuity,
  p.70.

71
Bacons Method

• Step 1All known cases where phenomena occurs
• Step 2Similar cases when phenomenon does not
  occur
• Step 3Cases when phenomenon occurs in different
  degrees
• Step 4Examine lists to discover cause

72

• "From Vico, the non-agreeing student of
  Descartes. Mathematics is completely transparent
  to our minds, simply because it is our arbitrary
  creation. One can achieve a complete
  intellectual grasp only of things one has created
  oneself. We have made mathematics, but Nature
  was created by God. So perfect scientific
  certainty could be possessed by God alone and, in
  attempting to find a guarantee for his physical
  theories in the axioms of human mathematics,
  Descartes had been deceiving himself."
• Toulmin, Stephen and June Goodfield, The
  Discovery of Time, The University of Chicago
  Press, 1965, p.126.

73
Pascal

• Truths of a different order non-geometrical are
  attainable by finesse, even if consensus is
  lacking. The language itself recognizes the
  source of the distinction to know and to know
  about express the difference between intimate
  awareness and things learned. Some languages in
  fact use different words for the contrast wissen
  and kennen, savoir and connaître saber and
  conocer. Man as scientist has come to know a
  great deal, but as human being knows and feels
  intuitively love and ambition, poetry and music.
  The heart-and-mind reaches deeper than the power
  of reason alone... What, then, is the importance
  of Pascal's distinction?... As a true believer,
  Pascal had no need to revel in destruction he
  was fond enough of his fellow men to want them
  saved, on any term hence 'Pascal's Wager.' He
  pleads with the increasing number of
  freethinkers, atheists, who had been freed' by
  science and who were the first to be called
  Libertines. Pascal says to them 'If you
  disbelieve in God, you have no eternal life you
  yourselves say there is none. But if you
  believe, you have at least one chance out of two
  for if there is not God, you are where you were
  before and if there is, you have won
  salvation.'"

74

• Observation and experience can and must
  drastically restrict the range of admissible
  scientific belief, else there would be no
  science. But they cannot alone determine a
  particular body of such belief. An apparently
  arbitrary element, compounded of personal and
  historical accident, is always a formative
  ingredient of the beliefs espoused by a given
  scientific community at a given time.
• - Thomas S. Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific
  Revolutions, p5

75
William Harvey

• Practiced vivisection
• Advanced understanding of the heart
• Text book on blood and circulation
• Attacked by followers of Galen
• Elected to Royal Academy

76

• In the short term he Lavoisier appeared
  opportunistic, but in the long run he was
  remarkably consistent in maintaining a broad
  investigative program held together by multiple
  links between the sub problems it encompassed. I
  believe that his combination of flexibility and
  sustained purpose, the middle road between narrow
  concentration and scattered attention, was a
  characteristic of Lavoisiers scientific style
  important to the overall success of his
  investigative enterprise.
• - Wallace and Gruber, Creative People at Work

77

• "...There is a closer connection between
  scientific creativity and scientific writing than
  has generally been noticed. It was in the
  process of composing his ideas on paper that
  Lavoisier sometimes came fully to grasp them, to
  see the flaws in them, to see how they could be
  further developed, or to perceive alternatives to
  what he had previously thought. Scientific
  papers are not merely reports of conclusions a
  scientist has already reached, but an important
  phase in the creative process itself."
• (Wallace and Gruber, Creative People at Work,
  1989, 55.

78
Ptolemy

• The Almagest

79

• If I have seen further it is by standing on the
  shoulders of giants. (Isaac Newton, February 5,
  1676) Let us explore Newtons phrase a little
  furtherNow if we think of building as a mere
  incremental process, brick on brick, it does not
  sound very romantic or excitingthis is hardly
  creative struggle or epiphany. Well, sometimes,
  we are sure, creative work is just that patient
  kind of building. Newtons phrase allows for
  that, and he himself was certainly patient
  builder, sometimes. But Newtons phrase allows
  for something else as well, the way a climber
  reaching one summit discovers unseen valleys and
  new higher ranges never seen before.
• --Wallace and Gruber, Creative People at Work,
  1989, 8-9