Week10
Prompt:
Using the course materials, identify and discuss an episode from the history of science that has been called a revolution or revolutionary. Who called it a revolution or revolutionary, why, and what was at stake in seeing it that way?
Response: (240 words)
A scientific revolution is a series of breakthroughs in the field of science, meaning that the scientific developments of the period have led to a new understanding of the world. Alexandre Koyré’s view that modern science is about destroying one world and replacing it with another. （Bowler, P.J. & Morus, I.R. 2020) In the 16th century Copernicus proposed the heliocentric theory that all stars, including the Earth, were centred on the Sun. This challenged the then generally accepted geocentric theory proposed by Claudius Ptolemy. And at a time when religion was prevalent in the 16th century, Copernicus’ ideas also challenged the authority of Christianity and were inconsistent with the Bible’s description of the sun and moon as being stationary. Copernicus’s ideas were not supported even by his friends, and Andreas Osiander felt it was just an intellectual conceit. Copernicus published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in the year of his death, but by that time the idea of heliocentrism had not been accepted by the general public, in 1609 Kepler, on the basis of Tycho Brahe’s data, formulated three laws of planetary motion to provide standard data for heliocentricity .（Fara, P. 2010) The process of acceptance of heliocentrism as a gradual replacement of tradition and authority by reason and evidence was particularly important in the Enlightenment. Overall, heliocentrism was more than a simple shift in scientific theory; it was a revolution that profoundly affected science, philosophy, religion, and the culture of society as a whole.
Reference：
Fara, P. (2010). Science: A four thousand year history. Oxford University Press.
Bowler, P.J. & Morus, I.R. (2020). Making modern science: A historical survey (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.
