Unit 5 Section 1: SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION and ENLIGHTENMENT SUMMARY: In the 1500 s and 1600 s, the Scientific Revolution changed the way Europeans looked at the world. People began to make conclusions based on experimentation and observation instead of merely accepting traditional ideas (Church, Greek Philosophers). During the 1600 s and 1700 s, belief in the power of Reason grew. Writers of the time sought to reform government and bring about a more just society. Despite the opposition from government and church leaders, Enlightenment ideas spread. Some absolute rulers used their power to reform society. Over time, concepts of democracy and of nationhood developed from Enlightenment ideas and contributed to revolutions. A. RELOOPING WARM-UP 1) Which historical periods are in the proper chronological order? Neolithic>Paleolithic>Mesopotamia>Renaissance>Ancient Greece>Roman Empire>Middle Ages Paleolithic>Neolithic>Mesopotamia>Ancient Greece>Middle Ages>Roman Empire>Renaissance Paleolithic>Neolithic>Mesopotamia>Ancient Greece>Roman Empire>Middle Ages>Renaissance 2) Which geographic features determined the location of the early civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, and India???? 3) Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are similar in that they all ask their followers to (Do what) 4) In Western Europe, the Middle Ages began after the collapse of which empire? Mughal Roman Ottoman Byzantine 5) During the feudal period in Europe, power and position in society were based on the amount of money earned level of education received number of slaves owned amount of land possessed 6) How did the new ideas and scientific advances of the Renaissance challenge the Catholic Church? Page 1 of 12
B. INTERPRET THE FOLLOWING QUOTES 1. Man is born free, yet every where he is in chains Rousseau 2. Common sense is not so common Voltaire 3. New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common John Locke Page 2 of 12
C. EVOLUTION and RELIGION CAN COEXIST, SCIENTISTS SAY Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News October 18, 2004 "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein DIRECTIONS: Close Read the Article and Answer the following question below What is the conflict between Science and Religion? Can they coexist or are they opposed to each other? Joel Primack has a long and distinguished career as an astrophysicist. A University of California, Santa Cruz, professor, he co-developed the cold dark matter theory that seeks to explain the formation and structure of the universe. He also believes in God. That may strike some people as peculiar. After all, in some corners popular belief renders science and religion incompatible. Yet scientists may be just as likely to believe in God as other people, according to surveys. Some of history's greatest scientific minds, including Albert Einstein, were convinced there is intelligent life behind the universe. Today many scientists say there is no conflict between their faith and their work. "In the last few years astronomy has come together so that we're now able to tell a coherent story" of how the universe began, Primack said. "This story does not contradict God, but instead enlarges [the idea of] God." Evolution The notion that science and religion are irreconcilable centers in large part on the issue of evolution. Charles Darwin, in his 1859 book The Origin of Species, explained that the myriad species inhabiting Earth were a result of repeated evolutionary branching from common ancestors. One would be hard pressed to find a legitimate scientist today who does not believe in evolution. As laid out in a cover story in the November issue of National Geographic magazine, the scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming. Yet in a 2001 Gallup poll 45 percent of U.S. adults said they believe evolution has played no role in shaping humans. According to the creationist view, God produced humans fully formed, with no previous related species. But what if evolution is God's tool? Darwin never said anything about God. Many scientists and theologians maintain that it would be perfectly logical to think that a divine being used evolution as a method to create the world. Page 3 of 12
Still, science does contradict a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible on the origin of the universe which says that God created heaven and the Earth and the species on it in six days. Scientific evidence shows that the universe was actually formed about 13.7 billion years ago, while the Earth was formed around 4.5 billion years ago. The first humans date back only a hundred thousand years or so. Like other scientists of faith, Primack, who is Jewish and reads the Bible regularly, argues that the Bible must not be taken literally, but should be read allegorically. "One simply cannot read the Bible as a scientific text, because it's often contradictory," Primack said. "For example, in the Bible, Noah takes two animals and puts them on the Ark. But in a later section, he takes seven pairs of animals. If this is the literal word of God, was God confused when He wrote it?" Proving God Science is young. The term "scientist" may not even have been coined until 1833. Ironically, modern physics initially sought to explain the clockwork of God's creation. Geology grew partly out of a search for evidence of Noah's Flood. Today few scientists seem to think much about religion in their research. Many are reluctant to stray outside their area of expertise and may not feel a need to invoke God in their work. "Most scientists like to operate in the context of economy," said Brian Greene, a worldrenowned physicist and author of The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. "If you don't need an explanatory principle, don't invoke it." There is, of course, no way to prove religious faith scientifically. And it's hard to envision a test that could tell the difference between a universe created by God and one that appeared without God. "There's no way that scientists can ever rule out religion, or even have anything significant to say about the abstract idea of a divine creator," Greene said. Instead, Greene said, science and religion can operate in different realms. "Science is very good at answering the 'how' questions. How did the universe evolve to the form that we see?" he said. "But it is woefully inadequate in addressing the 'why' questions. Why is there a universe at all? These are the meaning questions, which many people think religion is particularly good at dealing with." But is a clean separation between science and religion possible? Some scientific work, including such hot topics as stem cell research, has moral and religious implications. "Religion is about ethics, or what you should do, while science is about what's true," Primack said. "Those are different things, but of course what you should do is greatly determined by what's true." Natural Laws In a 1997 survey in the science journal Nature, 40 percent of U.S. scientists said they believe in God not just a creator, but a God to whom one can pray in expectation of an answer. That is the same percentage of scientists who were believers when the survey was taken 80 years earlier. Page 4 of 12
But the number may have been higher if the question had simply asked about God's existence. While many scientists seem to have no problem with deism the belief that God set the universe in motion and then walked away others are more troubled with the concept of an intervening God. "Every piece of data that we have indicates that the universe operates according to unchanging, immutable laws that don't allow for the whimsy or divine choice to all of a sudden change things in a manner that those laws wouldn't have allowed to happen on their own," Greene said. Yet recent breakthroughs in chaos theory and quantum mechanics, for example, also suggest that the workings of the universe cannot be predicted with absolute precision. To many scientists, their discoveries may not be that different from religious revelations. Science advancements may even draw scientists closer to religion. "Even as science progresses in its reductionist fashion, moving towards deeper, simpler, and more elegant understandings of particles and forces, there will still remain a 'why' at the end as to why the ultimate rules are the way they are," said Ted Sargent, a nanotechnology expert at the University of Toronto. "This is where many people will find God, and the fact of having a final unanswerable 'why' will not go away, even if the 'why' gets more and more fundamental as we progress," he said. Brian Greene believes we are taking giant strides toward understanding the deepest laws of the universe. That, he says, has strengthened his belief in the underlying harmony and order of the cosmos. "The universe is incredibly wondrous, incredibly beautiful, and it fills me with a sense that there is some underlying explanation that we have yet to fully understand," he said. "If someone wants to place the word God on those collections of words, it's OK with me." What is the conflict between Science and Religion? Can they coexist or are they opposed to each other? ANSWER WITH YOUR RESPONSE BELOW: Page 5 of 12
D. THINKERS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT DIRECTIONS: For each thinker below list their ideology and philosophy THOMAS HOBBES JOHN LOCKE BARON DE MONTESQUIEU JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU VOLTAIRE DENIS DIDEROT MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT ADAM SMITH Page 6 of 12
E. ENLIGHTENED DESPOTS ASSIGNMENT: Close Read pgs. 8-9 about the 3 Despots below and answer the following questions below. REFER TO YOUR READINGS FOR SUPPORT/DETAIL WHEN ANSWERING BOTH QUESTIONS (1) In your opinion which Enlightened Despot would you consider to be the Greatest? (2) If you were an Enlightened Despot during the late 1700 s what would you have done similar or different from the three Despots above? Explain why. Page 7 of 12
Enlightened Despots: An enlightened despot is a form of absolute monarchy in which rulers were influenced by the Enlightenment. They tended to allow religious toleration, freedom of speech and the press, and the right to hold private property. Most fostered the arts, sciences, and education. Frederick II of Prussia 1740-1786 Enlightened Reforms: Granted religious freedoms, Reduced censorship, Improved education, Reformed the justice system, Abolished the use of torture. Fredrick believed that serfdom was wrong but did nothing to end it since he needed the support of the wealthy landowners. As a result, he never tried to changed the existing social order. This demonstrates the limitations of his devotion to Enlightenment ideals. Most important contribution was his attitude toward being king. Called himself the first servant of the state. His goal was to serve and strengthen his country. Wanted to transform Prussia into a modern state. Frederick the Great remains one of the most famous German rulers of all time for his military successes and his domestic reforms that made Prussia one of the leading European nations. Catherine II of Russia 1762-1796 Catherine the Great is considered an enlightened despot because she was a great patron of the arts in Imperial Russia and incorporated many ideas of enlightened philosophers. One of Catherine the Great's reforms is that she set up a Legislative Commission to try to reform the legal system of the empire. Also, She increased healthcare by supervising the building of hospitals and development of vaccines. Took over the government after she had her husband arrested and confined. Determined to westernize Russia. Introduced Enlightened ideals to the Russian elite. Backed efforts to modernize industry and agriculture. In 1767, she formed a commission to review Russia s laws. Proposed reforms to the legal code based on the ideas of Montesquieu. She recommended allowing religious toleration and abolishing torture and capital punishment. The commission accomplished none of her goals. She did little to improve the lives of the Russian peasants. Her views about enlightened ideas changed after a massive uprising by serfs in 1773. After the revolt, she was convinced she needed the support of the nobles to maintain her throne. She gave the nobles absolute power over the serfs, who lost all freedom. Greatest contribution was land expansion. Controlled the northern shore of the Black Sea. Gained access to the Mediterranean sea through the Ottoman controlled straights. Expanded westward in to Poland. Page 8 of 12
Joseph II of Austria 1765-1790 crowned Holy Roman Emperor in March 1764 Joseph II of Austria is considered an enlightened despot because he has fully embraced the enlightened concept of the social contract. He said, "Everything for the people, nothing by the people." Joseph II had made many reforms throughout his time. One of his reforms is that he ended censorship of the press and theatre. Another one of his reforms is that he abolished brutal punishments. Most radical royal reformer: Legal reforms, Freedom of the press, & Freedom of worship. Most radical reform was the abolition of serfdom. He ordered all peasants be paid for their labor in cash. The nobles firmly resisted the change. After his death, many of his reforms were undone. Joseph aspired to increase the power and efficiency of the state by placing all subjects of the realm, including the Church and the feudal nobility, under benevolent monarchical rule. Committed to political reform, Joseph pledged to achieve the common good for all his subjects, and adhered to the Enlightenment tenet that the state's determination of the commonweal was based upon reason. Convinced that people should express their views freely, Joseph encouraged public debate, and issued decrees limiting press censorship and granting writers, journalists, scholars and scientists broad freedom to publish their works. If people did not follow the monarchs, the church and the monarch would torture them. This served as a threat and showed people that they should not involve themselves in the revolts. Torture such as stretching limbs and being brutally burned were used. Many people decided to revolt against the monarch. They realized it wasn't fair that they had no rights and were strictly led by the monarch. After the monarch was overthrown, people began to realize that they would have to rule themselves. Some people refused to go against the monarch due to cruel punishments and the idea of having to direct the land themselves. Others thought that this may be the start of a new time. OLD IDEAS: Louis XIV - I am the state. The state and its citizens exist to serve the monarch. NEW IDEAS: Fredrick the Great - A ruler is only the first servant of the state. The monarch exists to serve the state and support citizen s welfare REFER TO PAGE 7 FOR THE QUESTIONS TO THIS ARTICLE Page 9 of 12
F. WHAT IS LIBERTY? ASSIGNMENT: Using your notes, internet or other, complete the chart below and questions that follow: Liberty 1 the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views : 2 the power or scope to act as one pleases : individuals should enjoy the liberty to pursue their own interests and preferences. Philosopher What is the Role & Responsibility of government with respect to its citizens? How would each philosopher define Liberty? HOBBES LOCKE Page 10 of 12
Philosopher What is the Role & Responsibility of government with respect to its citizens? How would each philosopher define Liberty? ROUSSEAU MONTESQUIEU a. Which philosophers definition of liberty do you most agree with and why? b. Which of the four philosopher s ideas about government appeal to you most and why? Page 11 of 12
G. CONSTRUCTIVE RESPONSE QUESTION ASSIGNMENT: Close Read your Unit 5 Section 1 Notes and ANSWER the following Questions 1. How did the Scientific Revolution change the way Europeans looked at the world (physical and spiritual)? 2. What reforms did Enlightenment thinkers want to bring to government in the 1600 s and 1700 s? 3. What impact did the Enlightenment have on Europe? 4. How is the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment similar and/or different? Page 12 of 12