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“Other specialists, emphasizing the development of key conceptual elements, have suggested that the key period of the Scientific Revolution was 1610-1660. Other scholars, specializing in social and institutional elements, have suggested that the period after 1660 was critical, as it was then that scientific periodicals and state-sponsored science emerged.”

Professor Hatch brings up an interesting point here, perhaps entirely on accident. The food for thought is not what years did the Scientific Revolution occupy, but how do we define this period? What things are critical to science enough to define the revolution by when they occurred? The author poses some possibilities.

The first defining characteristic of the Scientific Revolution Hatch proposes is the development of ideas and concepts, as much social as scientific. This revolution is about the way people and society think, so it’s only fitting that it would be defined by how and what the world was thinking. This is a difficult part of history to judge, however, especially in a time when illiteracy was the norm and censorship was abundant.

The second plausible method of identifying the time period of the Scientific Revolution is the advancement of the standing of science in formal, educated society through literature and publications. While this method relies on empirical evidence and primary sources, the same problems mentioned above apply. You can only survey the educated classes, as the majority of civilians were illiterate. Censorship was more of a factor for publications than it was for mere opinions, which is made more tangible when Galileo’s plight is considered.

While not mutually exclusive to either of the two options proposed by Hatch, it is necessary to look at the Scientific Revolution as the attributes of the world before and after. Before the Revolution science didn’t play a huge role in the world, at least under that name. After the Scientific Revolution, whenever that may be, science began to take on an almost mythical status in society. The average man didn’t know how it worked, but he was confident that science could figure it out. Nikola Tesla displayed amazing feats of electrical engineering at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Thomas Edison brought that magic into the home’s of average citizens. The Manhattan Project blew the world away in 1945.

All these amazing achievements gave the public an infallible impression of science. Science is referred to with a capital ‘S’, and the media portrays it as a seemingly unstoppable force that will overcome any problem. Hmm, this sounds familiar. An omnipotent force that the layman doesn’t quite understand yet has utter faith in to do the seemingly impossible, like miracles? If you said organized religion, than that’s correct!

To further illustrate the effect that the omniscient Science has on modern culture, allow me to quote a popular movie as a social barometer.

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