Dr.Cogan-Anu Timple

I liked this lecture, especially with the emphasis that scientific revolutions were not always caused as a way to disprove God. Charles Darwin had brought in a new era of thinking from creating his theory of evolution, a theory that has many aspects which go directly against the teachings of Christianity. With the change it incited and the type of impact it had on people, it is very tempting to think that only science that disproved religion would be the type of science sought after in research for creating these scientific revolutions. In fact, this was not the case as men like Priestly displayed how in the enlightenment time period, scientists instead sought to create a link between science and God. Despite doing this, their discoveries were still so great as to be recognized by their peers and the public for centuries. They did not need to find research against God that would polarize the public just to create a scientific revolution. I also liked how in this lecture we had to do the thought experiment of thinking about air without any background information. It really helps put perspective on why people had thought the things they did about the world at that time. It is often the case that we look back at science and think that people were dumb for thinking things like how there were only 4 basic elements made up of earth, water, air, and fire, where today we know there to be hundreds of chemicals that make up elements. Yet at the time period without any of this knowledge, thinking that there are only 4 elements is not as insane as it seems. The air thought experiment really helped highlight the intelligence of Lavosier and Priestly and how great of a progress they had made from starting without knowing what air actually was.