DBQ: The Scientific Revolution

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have come to be known as the Scientific Revolution because great scientific figures, such as Newton and Galileo, made extraordinary discoveries and spurred on an age of curiosity for the limits of human knowledge. The Scientific Revolution transformed the way humans thought about themselves, nature, and the universe. Some factors that affected the work of the scientists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were enforced gender roles, endorsements from patrons, and traditional religious beliefs. Women wanted to make their own contributions to the scientific world but were held back by the enforced gender roles and views of women as less intelligent than men. Many patrons would endorse scientists …show more content…
Obviously, scientists would want the support of patrons to receive more money to buy whatever tools or supplies they may have needed for their experiments. Governments also wanted the sciences to flourish to be able to advance their countries and become more wealthy, so they established academies for scientists to be able to teach others and have all the necessary equipment to make their observations and experiments. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the French finance minister under Louis XIV wrote in a letter, “Because the splendor and happiness of the State consists….in displaying at home an abundance of wealth and in causing the arts and sciences to flourish, we have been persuaded for many years to establish several academies for both letters and sciences.” (Doc. 3) An academy was built through the endorsement of the French government called the French Royal Academy. In a drawing to commemorate Louis XIV’s visit to the academy, Louis XIV is shown standing in the center of a cluttered room with scientific tools--a map, telescope, skeleton, and much more--along with scientists hard at work. The landscape outside the window also appears beautiful, with an elaborate building in the background. (Doc. 7) This drawing could be biased as the artist could have exaggerated the amount of scientific instruments and grandness of the academy to make the king and government appear more helpful. A person who may have seen this drawing probably thought that the king was doing a remarkable job in aiding scientists and that he really wanted the sciences to flourish, though that might not have been true. [POV] However, the fact remains that academies were founded for scientists to be able to have equipment to practice their field, communicate their ideas with other scientists, and learn from them as well. Science depends on the ability to express ideas with others and the addition