Clivedurdle

Leewuwenhoek's "animalcules' were accepted by the Royal Society on 15 November 1677. He was not looking for them, he was trying to work out the pungency of spices.

Descartes lived down the road - the free thinking Dutch intellectual atmosphere appealed to him; he had been deeply shocked by the Italian Catholic Church's condemnation of Galileo's astronomical work.

Jardine Ingenious Pursuits paraphrase p 96.


Christianity was continually looking for the reasons behind things, not actually at them!

William Harvey was one of those who observed with delight the steadily pulsating hearts of insects under a microscope. (1628). Francis Bacon was a patient of Harvey's. Autopsy means seeing for oneself. (Jardine p 112).

I do not think this xianity led to science hypothesis can be correct. There is a continuous co evolution of observation, tool making and theory making. Xianity is clearly putting a brake on the thinking - imposing a "its like this" paradigm.

Telescopes led to observations of stars. Newton was able to use the star tables of Flamsteed to work out the math - interdependence of technology, observation and theory.

Wads4

I had an exchange of views about this with him way back where I think he also promoted the view that a Universe discovered to run on consistent laws produced the rise of science,-but that he appeared to ascribe the discovery of these "laws" entirely to Christian thinkers,-which in my opinion was over stating the case. Besides, if the "laws" are merely descriptive rather than proscriptive (by a God), then the whole concept of "Laws" as such, seems rather flawed. It does not require one to be a Christian in order to look up at the sky and observe regular patterns;--the Babylonians and Greeks also managed it quite well.

Wads4

Yes true,-but Christianity was by then the only show in town,-and one was not given much choice whether to be a Christian or not. Atheism, or any-other-theism was a dangerous activity to participate in.

Coleslaw

Wasn't there a substantial Arabic contribution to science in the early Middle Ages, or is this guy all wrong?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/featu...310285,00.html

Chris Weimer

Franklin? As in Benjamin Franklin? Nice try. He was a deist.

Julian

First of all, we need to make a distinction between individual christians and the church as a whole and it policies. There is no question that Galileo was a firm believer. There is also no question that a respectable number of churchmen supported Galileo and his views. It is also beyond question that the church as an institution did everything it could to suppress and destroy Galileo's views.

The main stumbling block to science was Aristotle. Ask any modern physicist and chances are that he daily curses Aristotle as one of the worst things that ever happened to science. The church liked him and the scientific establishment liked him. Aristotle single-handedly, more or less, with the help of successive generations stuffy, unqualified 'scientists' held back science for a millenium and half. The church was happy to help in this endeavor but the blame cannot be ascribed to them entirely, scientific establishmentarianism carries an equal, possibly larger burden.

When things started to change and Aristotelian views were finally revealed as the obviously inane non-sense that they are, that is when the church became the main culprit. As scientists across Europe were becoming convinced of the importance of empiricism, the church stopped all progress wherever they could. This means that the further one got from Italy, the better science became since the protestants didn't interfere in science to the extent that the catholics did.

As for Bede, he argues that atheists exaggerate the negative effects of religion (Bede is generally correct in this view), he is entirely guilty of the exactly similar transgression in the diametrically opposite direction. Between a frothing-at-the-mouth atheist view and Bede, the facts are probably somewhere in-between the two.

Julian

gurugeorge

It's interesting that of all other cultures the Chinese came closest to the Mediterranean cultures in inventing the scientific method. On the ideas side, they had something similar: the notion of Dao (or rather De) - the Way of Things - is very similar to the notion of Logos, "the logic of the situation", etc.

What the Chinese missed was the political side - except for a comparatively brief period (early Han) they had nothing like the political systems of Europe, with their emphasis on individual liberty and several property. (The special developments of these that gave rise to capitalism are I think more part of the ancient heritage of Northern Europe.)

(In the above, I'm taking it that capitalism and techological improvements go hand in hand, and technological improvement in scientific instrument making is one of the main factors in the growth of science.)