Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution is a name that some modern historians use to describe what they call the beginning of modern science in the mid-1500s. At that time, according to their theory, scientists began to develop the systematic use of hypotheses, and to continually test them with observation and experimentation. One example is Copernicus publishing the heliocentric theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun, as opposed to the geocentric theory that Sun revolves around the Earth.

Ptolemaic theory actually predicted planetary motion better than that of the Copernican theory for many decades for two reasons: 1) numerous mathematical adjustments to the Ptolemaic paradigm based on observation of planetary motion managed to uphold the theory that the sun and planets revolve around the Earth, and 2) Copernicus assumed that the orbits of planets around the Sun were perfectly circular, which introduced a significant inaccuracy in predictions based on his model. Once it was discovered that planetary orbits were elliptical rather than circular, the Copernican paradigm that the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun was proven correct and the scientific revolution he had initiated was complete. Certainly the change in perception that resulted from the realization that the Sun and other planets do not revolve around the Earth was a revolution in the true sense of the word. The fact that scientific observation produced this realization in spite of the weight of popular opinion and that of the Church lends credence to the occurrence of a "scientific revolution." Other examples of scientific revolutions are those of the unification of Biology by the Theory of Evolution and the unification of Geology by the Theory of Plate Tectonics.

Influence of Religion

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...

Paradigm Shift

Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, popularized the term scientific revolution (and paradigm shift) to describe enormous changes in accepted scientific thinking in a particular scientific field brought about by a new theory that accounted for far more observations than the previously accepted theory, and resolved anomalies for which the previously dominant theory could not account. The Copernican model of the revolution of the Earth around the Sun was one of his many examples.