We explain what modern science is and how the Scientific Revolution arose. Also, what are its main characteristics.
What is modern science?
Modern science is understood as the way of conceiving the world and the scientific knowledge that serves to describe it that was built in the West during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in what is commonly called the Scientific revolution of Renaissance.
Modern science is governed by fundamental principles whose appearance and demonstration meant a powerful renewal of the fields of science. chemistry, physical, astronomy, biology Y human anatomy, under the idea that all phenomena of reality respond to an understandable theoretical formulation.
It could be said that the foundations of contemporary science, with all its aspects and possibilities, is in this scientific renewal that occurred based on two stages: a first one of recovery of the philosophical and scientific legacy of classical antiquity, demonized by the centuries of domination. religious about the European mentality, and a second of innovation and radical changes, the best example of which is the substitution of the geocentric model of universe proposed by Aristotle and defended by the Church, by the Heliocentric of Nicolás Copernicus.
It is considered that the Scientific Revolution has as its starting and closing point the publication of two great scientific works: De revolutionibus orbium coelestium ("On the movements of the celestial orbs") by Nicolás Copernicus in 1543 and Principia mathematica philosophiae naturalis ("Mathematical principles of natural philosophy") by Isaac Newton in 1687.
Characteristics of modern science
Modern science is characterized by:
- The cientific method. Formally postulated by René Descartes in the seventeenth century, the method of science emerges as a form of research that separated scientific knowledge from tradition, authority and faith, allowing him a direct and proper relationship with his objects of interest, instead of the previous historical reasoning.
- Empiricism. Similarly, the science adopted empiricism, that is, the valuation of perceptible and reproducible experiences as a model of knowledge of the real world, rather than sticking to the reasoning isolated as it was in ancient times.
- Experimentation. The logical step in this scientific evolution was the experimental method, which proposed reproduction in a environment controlled of a specific phenomenon of the reality to be able to determine how it occurs and what forces are involved in it, testing beliefs through live demonstration of scientific theories.
- Mathematization. The math It is one of the oldest sciences that exist, and it was always used by philosophers and naturalists; but from the Scientific Revolution they began to be applied for the measurement of the phenomena existing in reality, considering the certainty they offered as the only one achievable by man, "equivalent to that of God", Galileo Galilei would say.
- Institutionalization. Modern Science that emerged at that time takes the first steps towards its existence as a institution of human knowledge, separated from the traditional fields of philosophy, the religion and the literature, happening to occupy a predominant role in the world to come.