Experiment!: Planning, Implementing and Interpreting

3.5 The Children of the Revolution

Let us return to the question of how this so-called scientific revolution affects our present lives. It is easy to get the impression that what we have discussed mainly is about planets. Their effects on our lives may seem limited, at least to those who do not believe in astrology. But it is important to think beyond the planets because this development is not mainly about them – it is about a revolution in human thinking. This chain of developments is the starting point of modern science and the scientific revolution is, thereby, still very much ongoing. When the Newtonian synthesis had shown what the scientific approach could accomplish, other branches of physics developed in leaps and bounds and other sciences were soon fast on the heels of physics. This chain of scientific discoveries has sparked developments in technology and medicine that would seem like magic to the people of the Middle Ages.

With a little imagination, anyone who has experienced a power failure can begin to picture how the scientific revolution has transformed our lives. Firstly the light goes out, then it becomes cold. After some time we find that it is difficult to cook and that our food spoils when the refrigerator warms up. I do not mean to imply that people starved to death before they had electricity, but due to electricity and other technical achievements we do not have to spend most of our days chopping wood, collecting water, manually washing our clothes, and growing ...