At the beginning of Dr.Cogan’s presentation, I found it interesting to think about air the way that scientists and regular people would before there was much scientific background. I couldn’t imagine trying to understand some of the basic facts that are commonly known now when there had not been many discoveries about the topics made yet. I also learned from this that it is hard to take back common things that we have learned in all of our classes. A lot of the scientific things that we learn are not appreciated for how much time it took to come across the basics and progress those thoughts even farther.
During the Enlightenment, there were many scientific revolutions that helped to improve average people’s lives. While these revolutionary ideas from emerging scientific work were important to the time, the political powers at the time were skeptical about losing their power. Along with this, the conflict of religion with science was prevailing to be a great problem. The benefits of all of the work being done are marveled today, however.
It was interesting to see the way ancient chemistry was viewed with the past views of 4 basic elements. Looking at how matter was described at the time and how widely accepted it was is intriguing because it is so different from today. After much more work and discovery, the paradigm shifts that have occurred have led us to what we are learning in school now. Imagine being taught about only 4 main elements and basing all work on the ideas, then learning there are many more that play a factor.
Finally, I enjoyed seeing the experiments and tests that were completed during these times. Based on these ideas that were known at the time, their experiments were done in a good manner. The “goodness of air test” was interesting to learn about. I find it amazing to see the progression we have made about our knowledge of air. From the time of Priestly and Lavoisier to now, there have been much change of our scientific ideas. Overall, this has made think about how much our ideas of science will change/progress within the next hundreds of years.
You point to an important paradox in your post, Savannah. Namely, that those in power, who you would think would promote scientific understanding to better society, are often the ones that resist new knowledge. It s possible that people that rely on superstition or a powerful protective figure like a king, autocrat, etc, power can be more easily manipulated, often at their own peril.
I also am intrigued about just how ingenious Priestly’s experiments were. He died a staunch believer in phlogiston, which is ironic considering how much is results were used to dispel the idea.