Chapter 1. The wider picture, where did it all start?

How was writing invented?

Writing has been an important discovery for the development of science. ‘Preliterate civilizations’ are civilizations that have not yet invented scripture. These civilizations for example make fire, hunting, and gathering. They build on practical knowledge of 'knowing how' without the theoretical understanding of the underlying principles. A second characteristic is that the knowledge of the history of the tribe is limited to two generations. The rest of the information is lost. A third characteristic is ‘animism’; the working of the world is explained by spirits that have human qualities. This is a term introduced by Edward Burnett Tylor. Values ​​and behaviors of the civilizations stemmed from myths and stories. In the case of illness, the person with the most knowledge of these myths and stories was called upon. Often the stories were contradictory, as soon as writing came into existence, patterns were visible in the myths and stories.

The first writing systems

Protowriting is the use of symbols without linguistic information. It first appeared in China, America, Egypt and Sumer (one of the first civilizations in Mesopotamia). From an early stage, writing systems were primarily based on a combination of pictograms and phonograms. An pictogram is an information-containing sign that consists of a picture that represents a person an animal or an object. A phonogram is a sign that represents a sound and forms the basis of writing systems. This eventually created the alphabet system which started with the Phoenician alphabet that formed the basis for the Arabic, Hebrew and Greek alphabet. The physical signs and the meaning of the word became more and more separated from each other over time, creating the logo graphic alphabet. A logograph is a sign that represents a spoken word that no longer has a physical resemblance to the meaning of the word.

Written documents as external memory

Through writing accumulation of knowledge arises throughout generations. There is no need to rediscover. Socrates commented on this. When a student relies on all information that is static, he may become lazy and discouraged from gaining new knowledge from his own curiosity and experience. The form of information retention also changed. In the past, poems were often told that rhymed, because it was easier to remember and transfer. With writing the emphasis could be more on the content rather than the form.

The development and role of the reader

In the past only a small part of the population could read. The first writings contain no spaces between words, called scriptio continua (continuous scripts), making it difficult to read. The spaces made reading easier and readers no longer had to read aloud.

Reading is easiest for languages ​​in which the spelling and sound correspond as much as possible. This was and is the case with Spanish , Italian, German and Korean. English and Hebrew are more complex languages, because orthography has had more influence here. You can still see that children raised with one of these languages ​​take four times longer to reach a certain language level.

The scholistic method is a study method in which students study and remember texts that are thought to contain unchangeable facts. In the past, books were the wisdom of the world that had to be passed on in original form from generation to generation. Students were discouraged from questioning the texts.

How were numbers invented?

The discovery of figures has also made a major contribution to the growth of knowledge. The first archaeological proof of counting comes from 35,000 to 20,000 years before our era. Isolated tribes had counting systems that consisted of three terms: one, two and more.

Larger numbers and the need for grouping the tallies

The problem with tallies is that they quickly exceed the reach of perception. III is usable, but IIIIIIIIIII not. The solution for this has arisen independently in different cultures. They began to group numbers as they do with the number five. Five is the first number that exceeds the limits of perception, but it is also the number that corresponds to the number of fingers on a hand.

Names, symbols and basic numbers

When comparing number systems from different cultures, it is striking that the names of the same numbers are similar. This indicates that a number system already existed before language emerged. The most frequently chosen base number is ten. But that was not fixed in the different number systems. The Sumerian system used 60 as the basic number, which can still be seen in the time units. In the French system, 20 is used as the base number (quatre -ving-dix-sept = four-twenty-ten-seven = 97). Some number names are also based on finger counting. Twelve comes from, two left, two more on the left when both hands are full. The irregular naming of the teens is not present in the Chinese number system, which may be one of the reasons why Chinese children have less of a problem understanding the base 10 system of numbers.

From the moment numbers had names, it was a small step to represent them with symbols. Giving names to numbers happened for the first time among the Greeks and Romans. India developed a more transparent and better naming system than the Greeks and Romans, the ‘place coding system’. This is a system in which the meaning of a sign depends not only on its shape but also on its position in a series. The first number represented the units, the second number the tens, the third number the hundreds, etc. The invention for the number 0 was required for this.

What was invented in the Fertile Crescent?

Fertile Cresent is a region in the Middle East with advanced civilization around 3000 before our count. The Ancient Mesopotamia and the Ancient Egyptian Civilizations were part of this.

The old Egypt

A few major inventions from this area were the wheel, geometric knowledge (for example, being able to calculate the volume of a pyramid) and a calendar consisting of 12 months and 30 days.

The ancient Mesopotamia

Mathematical knowledge was more sophisticated in Mesopotamia. They applied this in astronomy to be able to calculate what the best time would be for planting and harvesting. The growth of knowledge was possible in these areas through political stability, urbanization, patronage and the availability of the writing system that was easy enough to learn by enough people to reach the most important group.

What was discovered by the ancient Greeks?

The Greeks built on the knowledge of the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, but added their own knowledge. Hippocrates played an important part in this. He is also called the father of medicine, because he had developed physics treatments for diseases called Corpus Hippocraticum. Philosophy is a critical reflection on the universe and the functioning of man and started with the Greeks around 600 before the count. One of the biggest questions was whether things remained constant or whether things changed.

A reflection of the ideal world, Plato

Plato is seen as the founder of philosophy (literally: love of wisdom). Plato made a distinction between the eternal unchangeable and the material reality in which nothing is perfect (the world that we consider). According to Plato, we see no more than the shadow of the real world. The soul is immortal and strictly separated from our body. The soul travels between the stars and the human body where it resides temporarily. We can know the perfect world regarding goodness, beauty, equality and change by focusing on the knowledge that the soul can give us. Pure knowledge can be obtained through logic and intelligence, from the inside out, not through perception (a rationalist, not an empiricist).

Plato divided the soul into three. The first part is immortal and lies within the brain, called reason: it provides access to the perfect world of ideas in which abstraction is important and language plays no role. The second part is enclosed in the heart and is mortal, the sensations: it provides an experience of emotions. The third and lowest part of the soul is in the liver called hunger and lower passions: it causes hunger, lust, eagerness etc.

The nature of knowledge, Aristotle

Aristotle was also a Greek philosopher and a student of Plato. He distinguished knowledge into three types. The first is productive knowledge: the knowledge with which things were accomplished such as food cultivation, engineering, art, etc. The second is practical knowledge: the knowledge about how people should behave in different circumstances. And theoretical knowledge: the truth, subdivided into mathematics, natural sciences and theology.

According to Aristotle, theoretical consisted of a series of axioms from  which the remaining knowledge was derived by means of logic. The axioms were self-evident truths about nature, which were acquired through observation and intuition, and of which the final cause could be discerned.

Aristotle also thought that the universe consisted of the earth as the center, surrounded by the moon and a number of planets. He distinguished the universe into two regions: the sub-lunar region (from the earth to the moon) and the super-lunar region (from the moon to the end of the universe). According to Aristotle, the first consisted of the elements air, earth, fire and water, the composition of which is constantly changing. He described the universe as a ‘horror or vacuum’, there was no part that did not consist of one of the four elements.

The role of logic

As said, according to Aristotle, knowledge arose through axioms. Starting principles + perception + logic = knowledge. He developed a system in which it could be tested whether something is true or false. He calls elementary assertions propositions and stated that they exist in two forms. The affirmative form: All A's are B's or in the negative form: No A's are B's. A ‘syllogism’ is an argument that consists of three propositions: a large assumption, a smaller assumption and a conclusion. Example: All men are mortal, Aristotle is a man, Aristotle is mortal. The purpose of logic is to record whether a syllogism is correct or not.

Observation

Aristotle valued the importance to observation and good documentation of observations He was the founder of zoology and biology by publishing books with detailed drawings of animals and plants. In his book 'History of animals' he named more than 500 species of animals.

Aristotle was convinced that observation alone does not bring knowledge. Observation helps to establish the starting principles, then logic must still be used to gain knowledge. The starting principles are already there and are fixed in the universe before there is a conclusion. The basic principles are the cause of the conclusions. In the following chapters, the relationship between observation and theory will be a continuing point of discussion from a philosophical point of view.

Aristotle also introduced an existing force into the universe. He called this power psyche (anima in Latin) and distinguished living from non-living things. It consisted of three types. The first is the vegetative soul which is present in all living objects including plants. It ensures the organisms can feed and reproduce. Animals and plants possess animal souls (or sensitive souls) through which they can feel, move, have a memory and have an imagination. Thirdly, the rational soul, which only the person possesses through which they can consciously reason.

The beginning of schools

In Greek society, people rented themselves to transfer their knowledge. As a result, reading and writing skills were spread throughout ancient Greece. Four types of schools were created. The first was the Academy, founded by Plato 388 BC. The second was the Lyceum, founded by Aristotle 335 BC. Aristotle was a student at Plato's school but founded his own school after Plato's death. Later the Stoa and the garden of Epicurus were added.

The growth of Alexandria

Greek culture was expended under the leadership of Alexander the Great. This was partly due to his military success. As the borders expanded to other cultures, this brought a new dynamic. Hellenistic culture emerged, which continued after the death of Alexander the Great. The culture was mainly located in Alexandria, a city in Egypt created by Alexander the Great. The way of thinking was mainly influenced by mathematics and was therefore a much more specialized way of thinking than the great philosophical movements of Plato and Aristotle. Names like Euclid, Herophilos, Erasistratos, Archimedes and Ptolemy played a major role in this.

What were the developments in the Roman Empire?

Around 200 BC the Roman empire had also stretched out and began to get close to the Greek empire. The Romans admired the Greeks and wanted to learn from them. Many people in the Roman Empire already visited the Greek schools for their education. It is said that the Romans were politically and militarily stronger and the Greeks were more artistic and intellectual. The Romans were much more interested in practical knowledge than the Greeks who dealt with philosophical issues. Among the Romans, the emphasis was more on technological inventions and improvements. Usability and effectiveness were important features in a new project or idea, according to the Romans. They have set up the legal system and infrastructure. They designed tools and built good agriculture.

The Byzantine empire

Around 300 civil wars started between the west and east side of the empire. Rome remained the capital of the West, but the heart of the empire lay with the East, the Hellenistic world. Here the Byzantine empire began to emerge. The capital of this became Constantinople. It was in the Roman Empire, but Greek culture prevailed here. In 1453 Constantinople was in the hands of the Ottoman (Turkish) empire. Byzantine science had never reached the level of the ancient Greeks, but it did ensure that the knowledge of the Greeks continued. The Christian religion became more and more dominant, which meant that less progress took place within science. For centuries, religious institutions and schools were the ones who promoted intellectual knowledge. They were not interested in the natural sciences and dismissed it as uninteresting knowledge. Internal differences led to the Catholics and Protestants.

The Arab empire

Mohammed was born in Mecca in the sixth century. This is where Islam came about. The Koran was one of the first books written in Arabic.

In 749 the Abbasid family came to power and political stability emerged. The Arabs started to translate Greek works into Arabic. A research institute was founded in Baghdad: The house of wisdom. The Indian number system was also used and converted this into a more efficient mathematical system than the Greeks and Romans. The Algebra by al-Khwarizmi in particular was a highlight.

The remains of the Roman Empire

Scientific knowledge in the Roman empire already declined before its fall. This was partly due to a poorer knowledge of the Greek language. The motivation to learn a second language declined because people wanted to get started economically. Highly educated people continued to learn a second language in order to transfer their knowledge to a larger audience. A barrier was created between the Greeks and the Romans. Plato's works have been studied, because his point of view of a higher invisible world coincided with the vision of the church.

The contribution of the Catholic Church

After the fall of Rome in 476 and the takeover by Germanic tribes, the Catholic Church controlled the learning system by creating and supporting schools. In the Byzantine empire, science was not the most important thing in the empire. The Catholic Church did not support critical thinking. Scientific knowledge fell back to the level of the Romans. This is the reason that the Middle Ages were called the 'dark ages' .

What did the tide turn in the west?

The beginnings of schools and universities

The revival of learning in the West has become a long story. The first was the effort of Charle the Great around 800 to revive education in the Carolingan empire. Especially in the capital Aachen. Secondly, there was a population explosion due to improvement of agriculture between 1000 and 1200. This resulted in urbanization and schools with broad educational goals. The teachers organized themselves into guilds which they called universities. The first independent universities were established in Bologna, Paris and Oxford. Students who had completed their masters were teachers and were allowed to teach everywhere. This in turn led to increased mobility of these teachers and harmony of different cultures. The translation of Arabic and Greek works into Latin reached its peak.

The clash of Aristotle and the church

There was a problem with the integration of Aristotle's work. For many, his work was more inspiring than those of Plato (on which the church built). This mainly led to disagreement at the University of Paris. Most other universities included Aristotle in education, and Paris eventually followed. Aristotle contradicted the Bible by claiming that the universe was eternal without a beginning and an end. While the Bible promotes a beginning and an end. He also claimed that the soul cannot survive without the body, contrary to what the Bible said. The entire philosophy of origin and world vision were different, which led to much more disagreement than these two examples. The Catholic Bishop had in 1277 a list of 219 propositions of Aristotle's philosophy that should not be included in the education program of the University of Paris.

The revival of Greek and Roman culture

The Renaissance originated in the Middle Ages: a cultural movement from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century based on a rediscovery and imitation of the Greek and Roman societies. This started in Italy and was mainly seen in the architecture and paintings. Copernicus questioned Aristotle by asking whether the earth is the center of the universe. Gerardus Mercator developed a technique that made accurate maps of the world.

The protestant reformation

The reformation was a movement against the Roman Catholic Church, which was important for the development of science. The movement emphasized the importance of education, critical thinking and hard work. According to sociologist Max Weber, the Protestant countries played away the Catholics through their ethics. They were much more open to science.

Book printing

Printing was invented by Johannes Gutenberg. A technique whereby metal letters could be reused after printing, resulting in fast and inexpensive production. This had a huge impact on science. Firstly, the threshold for access to information was much lower in both Latin and the native language. Books were scarce, but full-time jobs were created to keep books well and not to lose them. Thirdly, people wanted to copy books and sometimes this went wrong, which could lead to huge errors of interpretation, especially in mathematics. Thirdly, different schools could now work with the same book, which allowed them to collaborate much better in transferring knowledge.

Colonization

The European powers started the exploration of the world. The coasts of Asia and Africa were occupied and America was discovered in 1492. It soon became a competition.

Aristotle claimed that the world consisted of five different climate zones. Two extremes, the poles, that were too cold for life. The zones near the equator were too warm for life. Only the two zones in between were livable. The Portuguese proved the opposite by occupying parts in Africa near the equator where there was life. As a result, Aristotle was also questioned in other areas.

What are the limitations of historiography?

Historiography is never quite correct and it is important that people are aware of this. A first example is that there is written around individuals. For example, Newton and Galilei are discussed in H2 and their findings. It almost seems as if the developments would not have come if these people had not lived, but this is often not true. Developments come about through a certain spirit of the times. Zeitgeist: A word used in the history of science to indicate that the circumstances in a certain era were good for a certain discovery. The discovery never comes solely from a brilliant person, but through a broader development that ultimately leads to a discovery.

Next is the Matthew effect: The tendency to give more credits to an important scientist than they have earned. This creates a distorted picture of the impact of this scientist. There is also a tendency to believe that the evidence that scientists came up with is much more convincing than it actually was. Because classical discoveries must be clear-cut discoveries, not a slow and messy unearthing of evidence.

There is also often self-centered writing. A writer belongs to a certain group or people and the history is described in this way from this people. The same idea is that China in China is at the center of the world map and Europe in Europe. In the end, historiography are summaries of summaries and a lot of information is omitted or incorrect information is provided.

Rewrite or streamline the past

Kuhn does not see science develop along a linear structure of knowledge. Science is also one of the possible interpretations of reality. Every historiography is an interpretation of what might have happened that are guided by a set of values ​​and beliefs that are shared in a particular research community.

It can also be seen that historiography is the result of many large chunks of information that are reduced and merged into a story so that it can only be contained, streamlined. The finite discussions about what Plato and Aristotle would have meant had no impact on the general history message that they had a major impact on scientific thinking and that at some point various schools were struggling to overcome their limitations. The message is that when a lot of factual things are wrong with a story, the bigger picture will be transferred. So it is worthwhile to further learn this summary about the history of conceptual thinking in psychology.

Chapter 2. What did the scientific revolution in the 17th century mean?

What took the view from a geocentric to a heliocentric model of the universe?

The Julian calendar had been used since the days of Julius Caesar, but it turned out to be wrong (for 11 minutes), so the calendar was already a day off after 134 years. They wanted to correct this, so there was a lot of interest in astronomy. Nicolaus Copernicus in particular had a great deal of influence on astronomical inventions and the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar.

A geocentric model

In the sixteenth century the world view of Aristotle was used, the earth is the center of the universe. This is called a geocentric model. Aristotle assumed that five stars circled the earth in perfect harmony. If they studied the stars well, they sometimes deviated from their place and not regularly. Sometimes they stopped, sometimes they moved (faster or slower). If Aristotle was right, there should have been regularity. This was not the case so something was wrong.

Ptolemy introduced epicycles, circles with which the stars turn around the earth at different distances, creating several epicycles around the earth.

The heliocentric model of Copernicus

In this model, not the earth but the sun was in the center of the universe. The stars did not move in his model. A circle of the earth around the sun would last a year, and if the earth itself had turned a circle, a day would have passed.

Copernicus published his model just before his death, because he was afraid of the reaction of the church. Another reason was that he thought maybe he didn't have enough evidence. He received various comments on his work. The first was what his model added to that of Ptolemy, which was just as complex. If the earth would turn, why not land a stone a little further if you dropped it from a height? And why can people stay on the surface? And why does the moon follow the earth and not the sun? Would the stars not become stronger or less strong if they are not always at the same distance as the earth moves?

Galilei and the telescope

Copernicus model did not have such an impact that it was used. He had made an impression on Johannes Kepler; he had continued with the model and turned the circular circles into oval circles. Galilei and Descartes have studied this model for years.

Galilei was the inventor of the telescope and used it to look into space. With his telescope he was able to magnify nine times. He has observed special things. First, there were many more stars than was seen with the eye, the moon had craters, Jupiter had four moons, and fourth, Mars and Venus became larger and smaller, implying that the distance of these stars to the earth changed. Galilei spread his findings and received a warning from the church that he had to stop defending the Copernicus model. Copernicus' book had meanwhile also been placed on the forbidden list. He was banned in 1615 and he adhered to it in 1632, when he decided to take action. Then he was transferred to Rome and put under house arrest for the rest of his life.

These developments show how the church defended its position against scientific influences of time. The church was confronted with the Reformation and the pope intervened in wars to defend territories. Galilei described the vision of the church in his book through a person named Simplicius (simple-minded). Not everyone in the church agreed with the way things were going, Galilei was also helped by some cardinals.

The evidence of Galilei was so convincing that the heliocentric worldview eventually prevailed, it was an important invention for natural philosophy.

What is the mechanization of the worldview?

Descartes

He was a Frenchman who lived in the Netherlands. He wanted to publish a book, Le monde, with a heliocentric worldview. It was only published ten years after his death. Instead of publishing his book, he focused on how natural philosophy and the church could be united. Anyway this seemed to be destructive to the religious worldview. He also saw the human mind as separate from the body, which is called dualism. Man's thoughts and feelings could therefore not be studied from the natural sciences because they belonged to the soul and had to fall under philosophy and religion. He also used a mechanistic worldview in which the material world can be understood as a complex machine. According to Descartes, this can be understood with the ratio given by God so that he does not constantly have to keep an eye on his creation. This worldview replaced the worldview of Aristotle who claimed that all living things were driven by souls who determined the purposes of the organisms. With his mechanistic view of the world, Descartes rejected the existence of goals, emotions, and intelligence because everything is interdependent and designed to function. The only exception he made was the human soul.

How were the first physical laws determined?

Why the earth revolves around the sun

Why the earth revolved around the sun and moons around stars was not entirely clear. In the universe of Aristotle there were two natural movements, down to the center of the earth (applicable to the elements earth and water) and up (fire and water). All other movements had to have an external cause so it was said that angels were pushing the sun and the stars. But what pushed the earth? Newton came with an explanation. If you fired a cannonball from a high mountain with enough power, it would not fall down but circulate around the earth. If you removed the friction from the air, this could go on indefinitely. Objects attracted each other, the cannonball and the earth and the earth and the cannonball. Due to the large difference in mass, the earth attracts the cannonball more than the other way around. Newton wanted to clarify the exact difference in magnitude of the forces. He published this in the book philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica where he described and explained all movements of the Copernican universe. This has had a great influence on the philosophy of humanity, especially the belief that all the mechanisms of the universe could be explained.

What caused the scientific revolution in Europe in the seventeenth century?

In the 14th century, the European population was halved by wars and diseases. A new growth began at the end of the 15th century. The feudal system came to an end and the aristocracy disappeared. The cities grew and installed democratic regimes. Merchants formed a bridge between the artisans and the intellectual elite. There was a big gap between them, craftsmen made discoveries but could not translate them into scientific laws. The intellectual people did not always have enough practical experience, as a result of which they could not benefit from knowing-how. This gap was therefore closed by the merchants. This could be one of the reasons that a revolution was taking place in Europe and not in China, for example (the gap was too big there).

Absence of religious pressure and authorities

Martin Luther had started the Protestant Reformation in 1483. As a result, the Catholic Church had less influence on the works of Galilei. His books were widely distributed in countries where the Catholic Church had no influence. The church distinguished between the worldly and the heavenly, which offered an entrance for science. For religious themes there was the church with the pope as leader, for all other matters the kings were in charge. This was in keeping with dualism, the spirit belonged to the church and the body to the king. Science could respond to the gaps and uncertainties.

New inventions

The invention of letterpress (previously discussed) has enabled discoveries and knowledge to be well recorded and saved, so there is no need to reinvent. The mechanical clock also had great influence, because its precision allowed it to assist in scientific experiments. The invention of the compass, telescope and microscope influenced wars and trade. More could be measured, which contributed to science and practical knowledge.

The influence of theology on universities

Universities offered nature philosophers a space in society and that signaled that the discovery of natural science was encouraged. But universities were also criticized for their conservatism and for being controlled by theological institutions. This still stopped the growth of knowledge, as a result of which almost all the universities in the field of science operated outside the universities.

The enrichment that the Greek and Arab civilizations brought

More and more information became available in larger areas. Archimedes' books on mathematics were distributed. Also the works of Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius became known which stated the world consisted of atoms moving in the empty spaces. This was an alternative to the universe image of Aristotle and Descartes. One of the reasons why the Greek work were read more was because Constantinople fell in 1453, causing many Greeks to go to Italy and spread their works there.

Cohen wrote a book in 2010 in which he described that inventions arise when two civilizations come together because then a dynamic is created in which there is interaction and a climate is created in which ideas can grow optimally. What happened at the meeting of the Greeks and the Romans, the Greeks and the Arabs, the Arabs and the Chinese and the Western, Greek and Arab cultures.

Stimulating factors for the growth of natural science

Natural philosophers became detached from the questions of totality and the study was no longer about religion. No major disasters occurred in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is also said that the Arabs were left behind for their catching up, because there were many wars in the area.

Science has also benefited from the rise of Protestantism. Protestants were even encouraged to orientate themselves scientifically and to read the works of Galilei instead of the Bible in order to be even more dissociated from the Roman Catholics. Protestant schools also distinguished themselves from Roman Catholic schools. It was true that Protestants still had the idea that the church had control over daily life. In the first instance they were also against innovative thinking, but in the end Protestantism proved to be a fertile ground for scientific progress.

Natural philosophers wanted to change the structures of society in which they would gain more status. This resulted in more universities, but they also established learned societies, such as Accadeamia dei Lincei, Academie Francaise and Royal Society of London. Here natural philosophers meet and share ideas with each other.

What was the new method of the natural philosopher?

Something fundamental had to be established in the method of collecting information in order for science to continue. Scientist is actually a word that was first created by William Whewell in 1833, before they were called natural philosophers. A number of methodological changes are discussed here.

Francis Bacon, the interaction between perception and reason

Traditionally, science was based on knowledge that came from reason. Plato, Aristotle and Descartes all agreed that knowledge did not come from observation, because our perception would not be reliable.

Bacon published a book in 1620, Novum organum, in which he stated that the interaction between perception and reason was important for gaining scientific knowledge. Reason has limitations which, according to Bacon, already emerged in the Syllogisms of Aristotle. These consist of propositions that consist of words that symbolize the core idea of ​​something. When this core idea is hastily linked to the facts, an error occurs. This is why induction is important; evidence based on observations. But also perception is limiting, according to Bacon, because it may have been marked and distorted by people's beliefs. In his book he talks about the confirmation deviation (confirmation bias) in which people tend to look more for confirmation than for denial. The negative is more powerful, because if it is proven that something is not, then it can never become a general law. If something is confirmed in a certain situation then it can always be invalidated.

Another problem is the limitation of the senses, because people simply cannot perceive everything. If observations are made, then they are only useful when knowledge from reason can be linked to them. A stronger interaction between the two had to take place to make science better. Bacon also suggested that observations should be made more systematically. He thought that natural philosophers should experiment more without worrying about the implications of the outcome for the totality of the universe. The knowledge that was acquired not only had to be described as scientific knowledge, but had to be used for practical problems: experimenta fructifera (fruit bearing experiments). And extra experimentation to verify certain propositions: experimenta lucifera (light bringing experiments). Ultimately, their works: particulars, must be converted into basic principles (self-evident truths which are called axioms) that will again lead to particulars. Bacon stated that science is not discovered by accident, but one must take on the responsibility of discovering the basic principles (axioms). He wanted to bring the particulars closer to the basic principles by placing a hierarchy in the basic principles, the lower ones being closer to the observations and the highest principles are very abstract and generally valid.

Bacon thus had a major influence on the development of science in the seventeenth century. Boyle was another figure with great influence who suggested that experiments should be conducted publicly and documented so that anyone could replicate them.

Inductive vs. Educational reasoning

Deductive reasoning: Starts with an assumption from which new conclusions are derived if logic permits this (Plato, Aristotle, Catholic Church, Descartes).

Inductive reasoning: starts with an observation and then attempts are made to derive generally applicable laws through the convergence of different observations, so observations are converted into scientific laws but do not guarantee that the conclusions are true. Bacon was dissatisfied with the assumptions of Plato and Aristotle and concluded from this that inductive reasoning would be better. Descartes was also not satisfied with the assumptions of Plato and Aristotle, but devised 'better' assumptions with the same reasoning system. This brought him to the statement “I think,  therefore I am” because everything is doubtable except doubting itself. And from that came the separation of soul (the doubting entity) and body, dualism.

Bacon and his experimental research into nature principles

Bacon did not think that everything should be done inductively, but he thought that observations should be used to formulate and evaluate axioms in which the axioms should be used to guide our perception.

Experimental history was a method of Bacon, in which the natural philosopher deduces the principles of nature through active manipulation and examination of the consequences of the intervention. This would not be observed passively, but an active role had to be assumed. Robert Hooke was a Brit who translated this into experimentum crusis (critical experiment), an experiment that can determine whether the hypothesis is correct or that certain alternatives are better. With this method, Newton came to the different colors of light (rainbow) with the use of a prism that separated the bundles.

Justus von Liebig noted that Bacon did not fully comply with his own method. His experiments often started with his own thoughts, after which he started looking in the literature for evidence that would converge with his reason. Bacon himself therefore also fell for the confirmation deviation he warned about.

The awareness of new knowledge

The realization arose that there was still a lot to be discovered by humanity. For centuries it was thought that humanity knew much more in the past than they did now. This was partly due to the Greek civilizations whose knowledge was partly lost by the Renaissance and partly by the Jewish-Catholic religion who assumed that God had created humanity with all the knowledge that could be there, but that that knowledge was lost when Adam and Eve had left the garden of Eden.

For a long time there was the conviction that this knowledge had to be acquired again, but there was a shift to the conviction that antiquity did not have all the knowledge and was often wrong because of new discoveries that had never been read about. The geography of the world was also created, which was first recorded on maps. Bacon had the idea that knowledge had to be rediscovered that already existed for Plato and Aristotle. Because of the shift, the truth and the basic principles could no longer be defended by arguments regarding authority, history and tradition.

Were there changes in society due to the scientific revolution?

The impact of science on daily life

The industrial revolution started 200 years after Bacon's writings. The revolution led to socio-economic and cultural changes in the nineteenth century through the discovery of machines that replaced workers, causing mass production in factories. Among other things, it led to migration from the country to the city, because there was a lot of employment there.

Five positive consequences were that workers no longer had to do heavy work and there was more production of goods; people lived longer because they became more aware of hygiene; they were healthier because they also became more aware of healthy eating; people were able to focus more on education; and they did also know more about the world because there was less time to be invested in getting the primary goods to survive and more time to read.

Science became more known, giving the intelligent people of the underclass opportunities. This created more social mobility. This also put more emphasis on the individual rather than the family. Furthermore, knowledge was spread because people started to specialize in a certain area. One could use new inventions but often had no idea how it worked. Society became more complex and more often people had to rely on each other's knowledge.

Increasing influence of natural science

Science was no longer seen as a way to gather knowledge, but also as a source on which society could be built. This happened in the age of enlightenment. This name was given in the 18th century in which Western philosophy and cultural life were determined by autonomous thinking and observation became the primary source of knowledge instead of the input of the authorities.

Positivism

Positivism was a movement that thought that knowledge could only be obtained from the scientific method and saw religion and philosophy as susceptible forms of explanation. Henri de Saint Simon was the man who introduced the term, but Auguste Comte is seen as the founder of sociology. Comte claimed that companies go through three stages. First the theocratic stage where gods and spirits dominate the culture in which a distinction can be made between animism, polytheism and monotheism. The second stage is called the metaphysical stage in which philosophy is the service that explains the natural principles of the world and humanity. Thirdly, the positivist stage in which things are explained on the basis of natural sciences. When a society was in this last stage, the society was mature, according to Comte. He called his theory The Law of Three Stages. But for Comte, science had to become a kind of religion with the function of maintaining cohesion in society.

New claims about the status of scientific knowledge

Positivists communicated the following messages to the public: science is not based on opinions, but on experiments and observation, so it is always correct; scientific theories are summaries of observations and therefore always correct as well; and because science is always true, it must be the engine behind all progress.

The counter-reactions

The first institution that went against science was the Catholic Church. They threatened with torture if people followed science. However, they noticed that they had lost authority and in 1540 a new movement was established. The Society of Jesus, also called the Jesuits. They combined a strong intellectual diligence with an effective organization that set up many secondary schools and universities in which many languages, philosophy, poetry and science were taught. The extent to which the church had to occupy a strong position in education was a clash between the followers of the Enlightenment and the traditions. With the arrival of the French Revolution, there were religion-neutral schools.

Scientific knowledge was dangerous for Protestants too, at least if it was not led by religion. "Science without religion would be cold-hearted and religion without science would be narrow-hearted." The Protestant church initially had a good relationship with science. But around 1870 the scientists also turned their back on this church because they felt they had a derogatory attitude as an authority. One of the points of discussion was how long the earth had existed, the science of Geology and the creation story did not coincide here. Darwin also came around that time with his book the evolution that went against the ideas of the church. Science newspapers started writing about inhibiting the development of science by the religious authorities, creating friction. John William and Andre Dickson White were well-known writers at the time who wrote about this conflict.

The humanities

In addition to the developments in natural science, people continued to study the humanities. Humanities are an academic discipline in which classical themes from antiquity, such as philosophy, history, law, culture, literature, and art were studied. Burke was a man who claimed that something had been disrupted by the developments that have made society grow and change dramatically. Traditions changed or disappeared which disrupted social life and made them feel that they were venturing into the deep.

Romanticism

The Romantic movement was a movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was a counter-reaction to the mechanistic worldview and the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment emphasized the importance of reason and criticized matters such as the individual, the irrational, the imagination, the emotional, and the supernatural. The Romantic movement has always been portrayed as a movement that fiercely opposed science, but in retrospect this seems to be a myth and they were closer to science than was thought.

The two cultures

Charles P. Snow was a writer who came into contact with natural scientists and humanities scholars in his social circles and regretted the fact that two polar groups began to emerge in Western culture with natural scientists on one hand and religion on the other. He regretted this because he had learned through these different contacts that they can learn from each other. Polarization was caused by a lack of understanding, he suggested. He stimulated contact between the two poles by uniting both currents in education.

How revolutionary was the scientific  revolution?

There have been three factors that have hampered awareness of the impact of science on historians. Historians were part of humanistic culture and therefore did not have much affinity with science; for historians, the accumulation of scientific knowledge was a slow and stable process spread over several generations; historians did not believe in scientific "progress", with history there is no progress, they thought.

In the 17th century, the term scientific revolution was given a boost because it would make historiography more interesting and it suggests that there is a radical difference from earlier times, which implies conflict. Conflict was a hot topic for history writers.

Although many innovative aspects have come to light in the 17th century, the human view of the world has not changed as radically as the word ‘revolution’ implies.