History Commons^™

3. Galileo, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold A. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section VIII: The Development of Modern Science

Of all the early proponents of the Copernican theory, Galileo was perhaps the most renowned and certainly one of the most effective.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was educated in the classical, Aristotelian manner. He showed good promise, and began the study of medicine. The medical sciences failed to hold his interest, and he became intrigued with the study of physics and mathematics. He progressed so well in these fields that when twenty-five he was teaching at the University of Pisa. Even as he studied and taught the current physics and astronomy, he became convinced of the inadequacies of many Aristotelian principles. …

Xv. Biology And The Rise Of The Social Sciences, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XV: Biology and the Rise of the Social Sciences

Modern science, it has been said, has undergone three revolutions: the Copernican, the Newtonian, and the Darwinian. This oversimplification is valid if our standard of judgment is social impact. The Newtonian synthesis, which absorbed the Copernican, had convinced men that the physical universe behaved in accordance with inviolable natural laws and that these laws could be expressed mathematically. With the confidence inspired by this world picture, science sought to find those natural laws under which the animate and inanimate aspects of the world operated. Equally influential was the tradition which cherished the ideal of the conquest of nature through the …