Chapter 15 Cultural Transformation Religion and Science (pp.740-752) + Document 15.2, Condorcet (pp.756-57)

The birth of modern science became a new way of thinking. Europe's Scientific Revolution was a vast intellectual and cultural transformation that took place between mid-sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. For the men during the scientific revolution they would knowledge through a combination of careful observation, controlled experiments, and the formulation of general laws, expressed in mathematical terms. The people who contributed to the Scientific Revolution were Copernicus from Poland, Galileo from Italy, Descartes from France, Newton from England, and others who saw themselves moving forward from older ways of thinking. It was time to leave the old ways behind and lay a new Foundation of a more magnificent Philosophy. Science became so widespread by the twentieth century that it lost its association with European culture and became the main symbol of global modernity. Modern science was able to become a universal worldview like the main religions Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam; modern science was open to all who accepted its premises and its techniques. Science in the Nineteenth century changed for perspectives from the Enlightenment were not only being challenged by romanticism and religious enthusiasm but by a new development of European science. Modern science began to be applied to new domains of human inquiry in was that would undermine the assumptions of the Enlightenment. Charles Darwin was one of many people who challenged assumptions of the Enlightenment arguing that life has always been in constant change, and over millions of years new species of plants and animals have appeared while others went into extinction. This is is the same for humans, for they too were the work of evolution operating through natural selection. Karl Marx was another important figure at the time, articulating his view of human history that emphasized change and struggle. The change was a successful historical transformation in social classes that went from slave owners and slaves, nobles and peasants, and finally capitalists and workers. Marx saw himself as a scientist, basing his theories on extensive historical research that was similar to both Newton and Darwin. Marx aimed to formulate general laws that would help explain events in a rational way. Darwin and Marx believed strongly in a society that would progress through conflict and struggle, that was far more efficient then reason and education for progressing forward. The Enlightenment way of thinking which was through thought, rational, and independent individual was fading away. This cultural transformation would spread through all of Europe and lead to a more advanced society.