Nicolaus Copernicus

1. Nicolaus Copernicus is not famous for his contributions to reproductive science, but
rather for his contributions to ASTRONOMY. (Although he did work as a physician for a
time, studying medicine, as well as many other things such as economics, classical
history, linguistics, and politics.)

His famous theory was that it was the sun at the center of the universe, rather than the
earth. Although there were limitations to the Copernican model, it was an absolute
breakthrough idea. One such limitation was the fact that he still used a universe-based
model, rather than a solar system based one. In fact, our sun is at the center of our solar
system, and definitely not the universe, or even the galaxy.

His theory was heliocentric (sun-centered) rather than geocentric (earth-centered). The
geocentric model is also called the Ptolemaic model, after the Greek philosopher
Ptolemy. Decades after he first came up with the heliocentric theory, Copernicus
published his ideas in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (In English: On the
Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres). It summarized the theory. Besides the idea that
everything orbited the sun rather than the earth, the significant parts included the idea
that retrograde and direct motion could be explained by the rotation of the earth, the
idea that there is no one center of all the celestial circles and spheres, and the idea
that the earth has more than one motion (orbiting the sun, as well as rotating around).
Most of these ended up being true, as they were later proven by other great scientists.

Copernicus's heliocentric theory began what became known as the Copernican

Revolution, sparking the ideas and experiments of later scientists like Tycho Brahe and
Johannes Kepler. Most significantly, Kepler modified Copernicus's theory from perfect
circles to ellipses, and thus solved many issues with the original model--especially the
ones having to do with retrograde motion.

2. The thought experiment is useful in all aspects of life, not just science. Thought
experiments allow us to explore possibilities, ponder scenarios, while applying what we
already know about the world in order to give structure and order to our “experiments”.
Thought experiments allow us to do do things we can’t do, see things we can’t see, etc.

If we can take that knowledge, and apply it to the real world, perhaps we can do
something we couldn’t do without doing that thought experiment, feel something we
couldn’t feel without doing that thought experiment.

3. No. Science deals with investigating God's creation (from a theistic view point). If we
interfere with what God has laid out as fact then we are technically rejecting God's
creation… thus rejecting him.

Therefore, religion should embrace science and try to understand it, not interfere with it.
Charles Darwin

1. Darwin was a naturalist who observed how species change over time. Evolution is a
natural phenomenon that nature has been using for nearly a billion years to
promulgate life across the earth. Evolution is simply a part of life. A plant grows and
eventually a niche of insects adapt to eat the plant. The plants start to die off until one
variant of the plant develops thorns to keep insects away. The plants thrive, until some
variant of the insects develop a long proboscis to bypass the thorns. So plants die off
again, until some version of the plants develops a chemical that is poison to the insects,
who then develop immunities to the poison.

It is the natural cycle of life; competition, extinction, adaptation, survival.

As a naturalist, Darwin simply observed how this happened over time. He was lucky
enough to see the results of this 'natural selection' by examining species in isolated
environments and note the continual adaptation of species in ecosystems. His
observations and conclusions explained so much (especially the growing abundance
of fossil evidence that demonstrated that life on Earth has changed a great deal over
time).

To scientists, evolution is not a theory. It is fact, a fact based upon observation. Indeed,
we have learned to mimic nature and have found ways to replicate what occurs
naturally every day in every species. It is called genetic engineering and with those
techniques we can accelerate such changes in laboratories instead of letting them
happen only by chance over thousands or millions of years.

2. (a) According to the advocates of a “Generalized Darwinism” (GD), the three core
Darwinian principles of variation, selection and retention (or inheritance) can be used
as a general framework for the development of theories explaining evolutionary
processes in the socioeconomic domain.

(b) By selective breeding of specimens regarded as the “best” available. The Monk
Gregor Mendel who discovered modern Genetics ,selectively breed varieties of peas,
and noticed how succeeding generations “evolved” over time,-producing peas of
different shapes for instance. Likewise wheat has been selectively bred by farmers for
the whole of settled civilisation, to produce heads which are large and succulent,-out
of original wild stock that was little better than grass, nutritionally.

(c) David Rye provides a nice example of combinations of evolutionary theory

(particularly Darwinian Natural Selection) and political science gone horribly wrong.
Perhaps, most combinations so far in our history of these two areas of human thought
have worked out negatively. And so, at least in the West separating these two fields is
generally thought of as best practice.
However, this doesn’t mean that political science and evolutionary biology will forever
be unrelated.

(d) By providing an account of the origin and diversity of organisms, Darwin was seen
by some as mounting a serious challenge to traditional religious understandings of the
creation of the world and humankind. Some adherents of religion have argued that
Darwinian Evolution is utterly incompatible with religious belief. Therefore, they say,
Evolution must be rejected. Similarly, some opponents of religion have argued that
Darwin’s great achievement is to disprove the claims of religion. From this perspective,
religion must be rejected. Both sides share a view that Evolution and religion are
incompatible; both hold that Evolution entails atheism. But that is not the only way to
conceive the relationship between Evolution and religion.

Sigmund Freud

1. Another controversial idea was the one regarding religion. For Freud, religion was an
expression of neuroses and distress and also a way to control the Oedipal complex, feel
fulfillment, and an attempt to gain control over the outside world. He believed that all
religions were mass deceit but also added that no religious person would ever
recognize that. This was probably one of his most controversial statements and it
brought him even more fame.

He wrote: “A religion, even if it calls itself a religion of love, must be hard and unloving to
those who do not belong to it."

His idea about death was also very unusual for that time. He considered that humans
have an instinct of death that manifests itself through a need to destroy oneself.

When he reached his forties, Freud started believing that he would die at the age of 51.
He started being depressed and having more and more medical problems, so he
began self analysis. The major breakthrough of his self analysis was the fact that he felt
a lot of hostility towards his father and that he had sexual feelings towards his mother
when he was about two or two and a half years old. He experimented with cocaine
and considered it to be a great treatment. He also smoked a lot and believed that it
helped him concentrate more, which eventually gave him cancer; he committed
suicide with the help of a fellow doctor when his pain was unbearable.

2. Though his ideas were controversial, Sigmund Freud was one of the most influential
scientists in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. Sigmund Freud emphasized the
importance of the unconscious mind, and a primary assumption of Freudian theory is
that the unconscious mind governs behavior to a greater degree than people suspect.
Indeed, the goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious.
3. Freud completely overlooked Darwin’s theory of evolution. Freud would have to
spend a lot more time studying the behaviors of higher primates to begin to understand
what is going on in the more primitive areas of the human brain and how this impacts
human psychological development.