Scientific Revolution
The phrase the scientific revolution refers to the period around the 1500s in which science in the modern sense—the systematic use of hypotheses, continually tested by experimentation and observation—began to be developed, as exemplified by the Copernican revolution. Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, popularized the phrase a scientific revolution to refer what he called "paradigm shifts," fundamental changes in accepted scientific thinking brought about by crises in the existing theory; the Copernican revolution would be the model of such a revolution, and quantum theory and plate tectonics would be modern examples.
An 1867 article in the church-oriented Contemporary Review uses the phrase, while making the point that the scientific revolution was not only not, as often implied, an opposition to religion, but was in fact largely the work of the clergy. The author suggests that "Galileo, the layman, was himself partly to blaim for the persecution which the churchman, Copernicus avoided." He then continues:
- Let us mark down, for instance, the names of churchmen as they come before us in the history of the scientific revolution which lies parallel to the Reformation. As far back as the twelfth century, the great mystical theologian, Richard of St. Victor, described the true method of physical inquiry... Raymond Lully became a Franciscan missionary. Roger Bacon has all but lost his title of Doctor mirabilis under the designation of Franciscan friar. Cusanus was a cardinal.... Copernicus passed over from medicine to the Church, and spent much of his life as a cathedral canon. It is the same in every branch of intellectual movement. Churchmen are ever foremost in the ranks...[1]
The whole idea of the Scientific Revolution is a myth that is caused in part by some terminological confusion. There was increased acceptance of a revolution in the sense of an cosmological revolution of the Earth. There was no intellectual revolution in the sense of a profound change in intellectual thought. Experimentation and research were just as important in the much older cosmological models. The progress of science has been gradual and continuous.