The Progressive Force of the Scientific Revolution

During the fifteen to seventeen hundreds, the general scientific knowledge in western civilization began to grow steadily in the subjects of medicine, chemistry, astronomy, engineering, and many more, this event was what we call today the Scientific Revolution. There are different opinions about what exactly caused the Scientific Revolution, but I believe that it was triggered by a mindset in the common man, but enabled by the clearing out of any prior ideas, therefore, to truly discover the truth of a matter, one must eliminate any baseline or former assumptions, and start at zero to form their own claims. 

During the years prior to the Scientific Revolution most scientific knowledge was based on ancient ideas, even as far back as Hypocrates and other aged sources, this set the stage for a massive departure from these potentially unreliable sources, and thus giving birth to The Scientific Revolution. It was a common occurrence during this time to reject the ancients, which drove people to search out their own answers, leading to an entirely new way of looking at science. Some notable names in the Scientific Revolution were Nicholas Copernicus, who founded the Heleocentric Theory, Tycho Brahe, for his study of astronomy and his writings, Johannes Kepler, for his laws of planetary motion, Francis bacon, for his contributions in spreading the ideas of these new sciences, Rene Descartes, for his study of the mind in which he gave the famous phrase, “I think, therefore I am,” and of course, Isaac Newton, for his laws of motion, and many other discoveries in the realm of physics and astronomy. One could spend hours talking about these figures and their discoveries, but the point of this essay is to show the common mindset that brought about this great change. Long before The Scientific Revolution there were many people who advocated departing from the ancient sources and doing your own research, this was the first step in the advancement, as to make something new and fantastic, the first step is to clear your slate of any other distractions. Now that the original sources were out of the way, the upcoming thinkers were able to take advantage of the fertile ground and make their own theories and ideas, thus leading to the new hypothesis, and giving birth to these tremendous discoveries. It can be clearly seen in our own lives that if we want to change the way we live, we have to be willing to part with our old ways, in order to raise our standards; take a good look at the many success stories, and you will find that many had to reach rock bottom and lose everything to succeed. 

In conclusion, before any major change or development can be made, we first have to do away with our old way of thinking, this is most clearly seen in the Scientific Revolution, where they were willing to challenge and reexamine the ancient sources to clear the way for new advancements and therefore, to bring about any positive change, we must first eliminate the things which bar the way, whether it be ancient ideas, or old standards.