THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

Topics: the medieval worldview, Copernicus and the church, William Harvey’s observations, Francis Bacon, defense of scientific research, Galileo and Cardinal Bellarmine, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies, the European Enlightenment, and Newton’s Laws of Motion. Assessment questions involve asking students to describe the evolution of the ideas that characterized the Scientific Revolution, and how thinkers like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton responded to the ideas of Aristotle.