The Rise of Science

1
The Rise of Science

• Platos unseen forms influence the view that
  religion has the perfect understanding of the
  world
• Science challenged this accepted view
• Foundations of tension between the religious
  world-view and scientific world-view

2
Copernicus 14731543

• Polish Catholic Priest
• De Revolutionibus Orbium
• Mathematical calculations
• Heliocentric view of the universe
• What about the centrality of the earth?
• Humanity has no cosmic significance!?
• Stars are further away from the earth than the
  sun
• Ptolemys cosmology must be wrong!

3
Tycho Brahe 15461601

• Provided alternative model of the universe to
  Copernicus
• Produced accurate measurements of the planets and
  stars
• Demonstrated that comets move across the orbit of
  the planets, not in a straight line in the sphere
  below the moon

4
Johannes Kepler 15711630

• Student of Brahe
• Discovered three laws of planetary motion
• There was a time difference in his observation of
  the planets and what he calculated it should be
• Concluded that the orbit of the planets was not
  circular but elliptical
• Break with Aristotelian view that the planets
  move in circles
• Matches astronomers observations of the universe

5
Galileo 15641642

• First systematic observation of the world via a
  telescope
• The forces of nature work in mathematical ways
• Heliocentric view of the universe
• Message from the Stars published 1610
• First real brush with religious view of the
  universe

6
Galileo continued

• Asserted Copernicus view of the universe as the
  right one
• Put on trial and forced to recant
• Why?
• Seemed to suggest that because the working of the
  universe was natural then there was no need for a
  Prime Mover/First Cause
• The Inquisition condemned the Copernican view of
  the universe

7
Galileo continued

• He was not anti-religion
• God had provided two different but complementary
  ways of looking at the world
• Scripture and science

8
Francis Bacon 15611626

• Rejected Aristotles idea of Final Causes
• Induction was the key
• Coming to a conclusion based on systematic
  analysis of events that have been observed
• Should move from habitual ways of thinking
• No allegiance to one school of thought

9
Isaac Newton 16421727

• Devised system of physical laws explaining
  planetary motion
• The world moves and changes according to fixed
  laws
• World appears as a mechanism
• Provided an alternative explanation for movement
  to accepted models
• God is no longer necessary to explain the
  continuing existence of the world mathematics
  can do this