In Review

The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment

A few things about the move from the Dark ages to this new age

• For most of history, man had used “common sense” to explain the world around him, which led to many false beliefs.

• During the Middle Ages, Arabs and Jews in the Islamic Empire preserved ancient Greek and Roman science.

• Thomas Aquinas (and others) helped people to understand that Christianity and reason could work together.

• A Theory is an explanation for how or why something happens.

What you need to know

• Copernicus and heliocentric• Kepler, the planets, ellipses• Galileo and science• Newton and gravity• Robert Hooke and cells• Descartes, “I think…”• Rationalism• Bacon and the scientific method• Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu

Some new information on some old people

• Voltaire– Famous playwright in the 1700’s– Thought people should be free to choose their

own beliefs– Supported Deism: Religious belief based on

reason where God created the universe and its laws, then set it in motion to run.

A few more old people worthy of mention

• Mary Wollstonecraft:– Considered to be the found of the women’s

movement– Said that women should have the same rights as

men, which was a pretty new idea• Rousseau:– 1762: published The Social Contract– Government is based on a social contract where

everyone in a society agrees to being governed by the general will.