Grosseteste and Bacon were prophets, not flag-bearers, of the coming new science. Their emphasis on observational, empirical science was overshadowed by a prevailing respect for authority that fostered acceptance of the ancient writings [Haskins, 1927]. The scholastic Albertus Magnus [~1250 A.D.] responded with the still-familiar rebuttal: “experience is the best teacher in all such things.” Their contemporary Thomas Aquinas was more persuasive; he created a mainstream scholastic attitude that empiricism and rationalism should have the more limited scope of serving religion.
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The scholastic approach of combining reason and faith was more scientifically effective than the Islamic approach of accepting diverse perspectives without requiring intellectual consistency among them. By the beginning of the 14th century, the young European science had already surpassed its Greek and Arab parents, partly because earlier Christian theological arguments had fostered a rationalist, logical style of evaluating abstract concepts. Yet a strong tradition of mysticism was able to exist side-by-side with the rationalist school of the Scholastics. The mystic tradition was less scientifically efficient than more rational science, because it encompassed research on invisible powers. Yet the centuries of alchemical research encouraged creativity and patient observation and eventually gave birth to modern chemistry.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, an Italian Renaissance gained momentum and the pace of change increased. Begun as a revival of interest in Greek and Roman literature, it rejected the otherworldly traditions of the previous millennium and embraced the love of nature and study of nature, at first through art and later also through science. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) exemplifies the intimate relationship of art to science in this period, as well as the age’s spirit of curiosity. The synergy of curiosity about nature, medieval rationalism, and empiricism led to an age of exploration and to the scientific revolution.
“The scientific revolution began in curiosity, gained momentum through free inquiry, [and] produced its first fruits in knowledge of the material universe.” [Chambliss, 1954]
“The condition most favorable to the growth of science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the increasing number of men who were drawn into intellectual pursuits. Genius is like a fire; a single burning log will smolder or go out; a heap of logs piled loosely together will flame fiercely. . . But the establishment of strong governments, insuring at least domestic peace, the accumulation of wealth followed by the growth of a leisure class, the development of a secular, sanguine culture more eager to improve this world than anxious about the next, and above all, the invention of printing, making easier the storing, communication, and dissemination of knowledge, led naturally to the cultivation and hence to the advancement of science.” [Smith, 1930]
There were scientific setbacks in these centuries, but the acceleration of science could not be stopped. In 1543, European science took a quantum leap forward into the scientific revolution, as the result of publication of three remarkable books:
