CHAPTER 2: HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS OF SCIENCE AND INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTIONS THAT

DEFINED SOCIETY.
OBJECTIVES:
1. Discuss the concept of Scientific revolution and its contribution to the modern science.
2. Discuss how science can formulate contributions in the society from its history.
3. Discuss How the ideas postulated by Copernicus, Darwin and Freud contributed to the
spark of scientific revolution.
4. Appreciate the scientific people that contributed to the evolution of science.
Scientific Revolution:
 Science is an old word itself. There is no individual that can exactly identify when and where science
began.
 From the Genesis of time, science has existed
 Science is always interwoven to society
 Human beings have embarked in scientific activities in order to know and understand everything
around them
 Noble Ideas -> Philosophy -> Possible explanations to certain phenomena
 Humans also used religion
What science can formulate:
1. SCIENCE AS AN IDEA – Ideas, Theories, Systematic explanations, observations about the physical
world.
2. SCIENCE AS AN INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITY – It encompasses a systematic and practical study of the
natural and physical world. Systematic observation and experimentation.
3. SCIENCE AS BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - It is a subject or a discipline, deals with process of learning about
the natural and physical world. School of science.
4. SCIENCE AS PERSONAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY – both knowledge and activities done by human beings
to develop better understanding of the world around them. Improves life, Survives Life, Interwoven
with People’s lives.

Scientific Revolution:
 Claimed to have started in the early 16th to 18th century in Europe.
 Invention of printing machine
 Blooming intellectual activities done in various places
 Growing number of scholars in various fields of human interests.
 Period of enlightenment when the developments in the field of mathematics, physics, astronomy,
biology, and chemistry transformed the views of society about nature
 Emergence of the birth of modern science
 Golden age
 Some scientific individuals led to their painful death, condemnations from religious institutions.
 Some religions did not accept many of the early works of scientists.
 Curiosity – Did not stop scientific people.
 Their love for science is driven by their deep passion to know and discover.

 Very significant in the development of human beings, transformation of the society and in the
formulation of scientific ideas.
 Scientific investigations, experiments and observations.
 Creation of new research fields in science -> Modern science
 SCIENTIST – Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
 Hence, the three composition of discipline in science was formulated which includes: THEORY,
RESEARCH and PRACTICE.
Invention of Movable printing press by Johannes
Gutenberg in year 1450
(This is his grandson)
NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
• Born: February 19, 1473 Died: May 24, 1543
• Polish astronomer who proposed that the planets have the Sun as the fixed point to which their
motions are to be referred
• That Earth is a planet which, besides orbiting the Sun annually, also turns once daily on its own axis;
and that very slow long-term changes in the direction of this axis account for the precession of the
equinoxes.
• This representation of the heavens is usually called the heliocentric, or “Sun-centered,” system—
derived from the Greek helios.
• Finished his manuscript called commentariolus (Little commentary)
• He Outlined two kinds of planetary motion:
1. The orbits of venus and mercury lay inside the orbit of the earth thus closer to the sun
2. The Orbits of mars, Jupiter and Saturn lay outside the earth’s orbit thus farther from the sun

Mercury and venus – Have shorter years

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn – Have Longer years
 Copernicus is a courageous man, during those times his model was judged as heretic and therefore
unacceptable to catholics.
 Banned and ignored in Rome.

CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN

• Born: February 12, 1809 Died: April 19, 1882
• English agnostic and naturalist whose scientific theory of evolution by natural selection became the
foundation of modern evolutionary studies.
• Darwin at first shocked religious Victorian society by suggesting that animals and humans shared a
common ancestry.
• Darwin formulated his bold theory in private in 1837–39, after returning from a voyage around the
world aboard HMS Beagle,
• but it was not until two decades later that he finally gave it full public expression in On the Origin of
Species 1958, a book that has deeply influenced modern Western society and thought.
• THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Charles Darwin had the following ideas regarding the theory of natural selection:
• Species keep on evolving or changing with time. As the environment changes, the requirements of an
organism also change and they adapt to the new environment. This phenomenon of changing over a
period of time as per the natural requirements is called adaptation.
• As per Darwin’s theory, only the higher changes are naturally selected and the lower ones are
eliminated. Thus, not all the adaptations contribute to a progressive evolution. For example, people
living in tropical countries have more melanin in their body to protect them from the sunlight.
• Almost all organisms share common ancestry with some organism. According to Darwin, all organisms
had one common ancestor at some point in time and kept on diverging ever since.
• He also studied that the birds of Galapagos Island (Darwin’s finches) developed different beaks as per
the availability of the food. This proved adaptive radiation. Similarly, he also observed the Australian
Marsupials which showed a number of marsupials emerging from an ancestor.
• According to Charles Darwin, evolution is a very slow and gradual process. He concluded that
evolution took place over a very long period of time. As we talk about the time period in evolution, we
usually refer to billions of years. The generation of a species from another takes a long period of time.
It is a very steady process as the changes and adaptation take a long time to stabilize and give rise to a
new species.
• SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, ELIMINATION OF THE WEAKEST
• Finished his book “The descent of Man”
• This replaced the dominant views of a religious or biblical design that places human beings in a
privileged position of having been created by God.
• Darwin’s accomplishment were so diverse that it is useful to distinguish two fields to which he made
major contributions:
1. Evolutionary Biology
2. Philosophy of Science
SIGMUND FREUD
• Born: May 6, 1856 Died: September 23, 1939
• A very talented communicator who did his share to raise the consciousness of the civilized world in
psychological matters
• The Father of Psychology The Father of Psychoanalysis
• PSYCHOANALYSIS – a scientific way to study the mind and neurotic illness
• Had a great impact in understanding human nature.
• Unorthodox method – Focused on human sexuality and evil nature of man
• Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory is centered on the belief that human behavior is influenced by
an unconscious mind. freud believed that every human has a collection of unconscious thoughts and
urges, many of which are unpleasant, that influence behaviors and experiences.
• Freud proposed that the mind consists of three parts: the id, the ego and the superego. He examined
his patients' histories in detail, looking for events that he believed caused certain behavior.
• the goal of psychoanalysis is to bring what exists at the unconscious or subconscious level up to
consciousness.
• This goal is accomplished through talking to another person about the big questions in life, the things
that matter, and diving into the complexities that lie beneath the simple-seeming surface.
 • Freud theorized that the id is present at birth and is responsible for a person's instincts; he categorized
the id as part of the unconscious mind.
• The ego develops from the Id, and ensures that the id's impulses can be expressed in an acceptable
way. The Ego is considered to be part of both the conscious and unconscious minds. Finally, the
Superego develops based on the morals an individual learns from parents and from society. It includes
a person's sense of right and wrong and guides people's judgments.
• Id - The id operates at an unconscious level and focuses solely on instinctual drives and desires. Two
biological instincts make up the id, according to Freud: eros, or the instinct to survive that drives us to
engage in life-sustaining activities, and thanatos, or the death instinct that drives destructive,
aggressive, and violent behavior.
• Ego - The ego acts as both a conduit for and a check on the id, working to meet the id’s needs in a
socially appropriate way. It is the most tied to reality and begins to develop in infancy;
Superego - The superego is the portion of the mind in which morality and higher principles reside,
encouraging us to act in socially and morally acceptable ways (McLeod, 2013).