Case Study: Scientific Thought and Society
Reading:
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For this case study you are to analyze Chapter 16 Important Changes in Scientific Thinking and Practice (Pgs. 513 - 517) and review the sources provided below. You are expected to be able to answer the guiding question in full depth with specific historical evidence and supporting details.
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Key Concept:
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Guiding Question - Skill: Contextualization
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Directions:
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Use the following documents to complete a DBQ essay. Click on the link for detailed directions for writing the DBQ
DBQ Guidelines |
Source 1: Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish priest and astronomer, dedication to Pope Paul III in Copernicus’ book, On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres, 1543.
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The learned and unlearned alike may see that I shrink from no man’s criticism. It is to your Holiness rather than to anyone else that I have chosen to dedicate these studies of mine. In this remote corner of the Earth in which I live, you are regarded as the most eminent by virtue of the dignity of your Office and because of your love of letters and science. You, by your influence and judgment, can readily hold the slanderers from biting. Mathematics are for mathematicians, and they, if I be not wholly deceived, will hold that my labors contribute even to the well being of the Church.
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Source 2: John Calvin, French Protestant theologian, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses (Genesis), 1554.
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Moses wrote in a popular style things which, without instruction, all ordinary persons endowed with common sense, are able to understand; but astronomers investigate with great labor whatever the wisdom of the human mind can comprehend. This study should not be prohibited, nor this science condemned, because some frantic persons boldly reject whatever is unknown to them. For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.
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Source 3: Marin Mersenne, French monk and natural philosopher, letter to his noble patron, 1635.
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My book is still in your hands and subject to your private judgment. If you object to anything, I am ready to remove it entirely. Know however, that you will not find a single word which is not true in my experiments, which many times confirm those of the great Galileo. Whatever may be, the whole thing is up to you. At least I am assured my experiments have been repeated more than 30 times, and some more than 100 times, before reliable witnesses, all who agree with my conclusions.
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Source 4: Henry Oldenbury, Secretary of the English Royal Society, letter to Johannes Hevelius, German scientist, February 1663.
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Friendship among learned men is a great aid to the investigation and elucidation of the truth. Friendship should be spread through the whole world of learning, and established among those whose minds are above partisan zeal because of their devotion to truth and human welfare. Philosophy would then be raised to its greatest heights.
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Source 5: Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher, Leviathan, 1668.
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The doctrine of what is right and wrong is perpetually disputed both by the end and by the sword, but geometry is not. Why? Because in geometry few men care what the truth may be, since it affects no one’s ambition, profit, or lust. But if Euclid’s proposition that the three angles of a triangle are equal to the two angles of a square, conflicted with the interests of those who rule, I know it would be suppressed.
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Source 6: Margaret Cavendish, English natural philosopher, Observations on Experimental Philosophy, 1666.
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Were it allowable for our sex, I might set up my own school of natural philosophy. But I, being a woman, do fear they would soon cast me out of their schools. For thought the Muses, Graces, and Sciences* are all of the female gender, yet they were more esteemed in former ages, than they are now. Nay, could it be done handsomely, they would turn all from females into males, so great is grown the self conceit of the masculine and disregard of the female sex.
*All represented as female goddesses in classical mythology |