Scientific Revolution New Thinkers

New Thinkers, New Ideas
The Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries changed the way educated people looked at the world. A new tone of thinking emerged creating a foundation that would later be built on by enlightened thinkers. Controversial views would soon challenge faith-based ideals, which in turn would test the power and authority of the church. No longer did people listen to beliefs from the past, people looked at new ideas of the future, ideas that made mathematical and logical sense. These new theories opened people's eyes to a new era, the Enlightenment. While architecture, philosophy, science, mathematics and freethought were restricted during the Scientific Revolution, enlightened thinkers freed themselves from religious dogma, allowing for the expansion of human knowledge at a rate never seen before. During the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment period, philosophers believed in breaking away from the established views of the church in order to
create new knowledge based upon reality, not by religious dogmas.
Immanuel Kant was an enlightened thinker who believed that people should think for themselves, rather than have others think for them like the church. In his eyes, he saw people who didn’t challenge the church’s authority as “cattle,” who obeyed the rules and never crossed the line in the sand. This so-called guidance from the church was also built on the foundation of fear and danger if people went against its values. It is hard for people to break out of the house of God’s shackles when everyday life is a constant, always believing what endeavors the church puts forward, it almost becomes second nature to trust a corrupt system. Although it is not impossible for man to enlighten themselves, if they are given freedom and more importantly freedom of speech they can lay out what they truly value without fear. Kant also points out that people can not achieve enlightenment without first following the laws of the society, but still have people that have the courage to criticize what they think is wrong or should be changed. Societies that have people ignoring the laws cannot reach enlightenment.
Galileo Galilei was a scientific revolutionary, who firmly thought scientific concepts accepted by the church were wrong. He also believed in the idea of empiricism, a theory meaning all our knowledge comes from our senses. After studying the night’s sky with a telescope, Galileo concludes Copernicus's idea of a heliocentric universe was right. For a while, the church assumed Ptolemy’s views of a geocentric universe were correct, yet conservatively they weren’t able to acknowledge Galileo’s theory of a heliocentric universe. After getting nowhere with the church he continued his works with motion doing an experiment with a ball that was rolled various distances down a ramp, and the times were measured using a water clock. Galileo showed that the motion on a sloping plane has a constant acceleration and is only dependent on the angle of the ramp not the mass of the rolling object.
John Locke was an enlightened thinker who concluded that he rejected the use of the power to enforce religious beliefs and practices. Like Galileo Locke also believed in empiricism establishing his theory of all of our knowledge comes from experience and experience comes from our senses. Locke claimed that humans could break down all of our experiences into different fundamental parts. For example, if a dog is shown the sensation can be divided into color, softness, shininess, shape, size and other aspects. Fundamental fragments of thoughts that cannot be broken down to anything smaller, are known as simple ideas. Locke showed differences between simple and complex ideas and acknowledged that humans often make their own decisions by combining simpler components to create complex ideas.
The Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment period created a basis for thinkers to challenge concepts accepted by the church and to create their own interpretations of the world.
Many limitations were placed on Scientific Revolutionary thinkers, but as more enlightened thinkers pushed away from religion, these people were able to extend their knowledge at an increasing rate. New theories that questioned religious dogmas and thinkers of the past opened people’s minds to new ideas. Kant proposed ideas of withdrawing guidance from the church and following the rules of society can lead to one reaching enlightenment. Galileo imposed concepts studied by the church were false, yet they continued to believe in them anyway. Locke didn’t think the church should force people to follow their practices, but let the people chose for themselves. These thinkers and numerous others helped people realize change is something that can be for the good and new ideas can transform the
world.