Science in the Age of Reason
This is from The History of Science course I took at NMSU during the Spring 2024. I took this class basically because it was available, and I needed to fill my schedule, but I ended up learning a lot that has given me intereststing perspectives in other classes. I don’t have a scientific mind, and struggled with science concepts my whole life, so this class wasn’t easy at times. Worth it though, I think.
Introduction
Francis Bacon inspired generations of scientists with his belief that if nature could be understood, it would benefit all of humanity. Born in 1651, Bacon lived during the Age of Exploration. A New World had been discovered, and with it new ideas, cultures, food, plants, animals and germs had been introduced to Europe. With them came a need for new technologies, and new systems to classify this wealth of discovery. This essay will explore Bacon’s vision and his part in the rise of science both during and after his lifetime, and look at some detractors of the field. It will also examine the views of the Enlightenment, the impact of the Age of Exploration as well as the new classification systems, museums and societies that rose to help further scientific knowledge.
Optimism and Pushback
Bacon was highly optimistic about both science and the potential of humanity. His vision that science is bountiful included his beliefs that “knowledge is power,” and that progress is inevitable. Humanity, he believed, could be perfected if natural circumstances could be controlled. His new scientific method, based on inductive reasoning, observation, and experimentation, looked to understand nature in the hope of using it for the benefit of mankind, stating “The great progress of our civilization is directly related to the centrality of science in our culture.” He called for all of human knowledge to be collected upon a “proper foundation.” Science had progressed mostly through trial and error, and Bacon envisioned systematizing it, to build knowledge and increase humanity’s power over nature.[1]
At the time, though, others were more pessimistic. Some didn’t like science because it didn’t fit with their religious views. The Bible itself begins with dire consequences for simply possessing forbidden knowledge. Some took the Bible literally, simply waiting, as mankind had been sentenced, for the end of days. Beyond religion, science seemed to be finding truths that threatened more hubristic world views. Galileo proved that everything didn’t revolve around the earth. Could it be that the natural world didn’t revolve around humans?
And for others, science was seen as existential danger. Published in 1818, Frankenstein is a novel about a doctor attempting to create a human using body parts. Once successful, the creation turns out to be nothing short of a monster, very destructive and not human at all. Ultimately, it’s a story about the danger of “playing god,” a view held by some science detractors. Should we, centuries later, think of Frankenstein as satire, making fun of the previous generation’s fear of science. Or was it portentous, warning the future against splitting the atom? Jeremy Rifken, a modern environmentalist, who has called for a ban on all nuclear weapons, would have probably taken Frankenstein as an omen, and some people at the time did as well.
Still, naysayers notwithstanding, Bacon was not alone in his optimism. Thomas Jefferson considered him one of the three greatest men in history. Even Bacon’s rival, René Descartes, admitted that science was necessary and that philosophy, by itself, was not enough.[2]
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Discovery and Enlightenment
The late 17th century brought about an intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason. An important concept of the Enlightenment was the idea of universal human rights.[3] Science had shown that universal laws existed in nature, which led to Enlightenment thinkers challenging the status quo in religion, economics and government. Considered radical and revolutionary in a world where the traditional authorities were limited to god and state, people began to think that if nature has universal laws, so should human law. A culmination of factors including the discovery of the New World and the industrial revolution started this wave of thinking, in which many people began to favor reason and logic. The concepts of universality, observation, experimentation and reason led to a shift towards science and away from philosophy and religion.
A second Enlightenment concept was that of the inevitability of progress[4]–social, economic and political. Progress, to Bacon, was directly related to the centrality of science in culture.[5] Enlightenment scientists believed in progress and were optimistic that they would continue to understand more and more as time went on, until eventually humankind would understand everything.[6] This knowledge would require systematic scientific research, another Baconian concept.
During this time, European powers continued to expand the world. The discovery of the Americas had led to new markets, and entirely new industries. The industrial revolution had turned the world into a marketplace. Trade in raw materials and finished products went back and forth by sea, across the Atlantic, along the coast of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. Along with new markets and new trade routes, the race to establish new colonies and skirmishes between empires pushed governments to turn to science as well. Seafarers needed new technology–and by extension science–for map-making and navigation. Governments needed science and technology for their militaries in the fight for global markets. The new economic and political realities joined ideas about progress to give science a new legitimacy among both rulers and radicals.
Classification
Bacon wanted humans to master nature and reconstruct everything upon a “proper foundation” of logical progress. The introduction of new species gave scientists plenty to study as well, and in doing so both the Age of Exploration and the Enlightenment led to progress in scientific study and the classification of knowledge.
To Bacon and those who came after him, “the end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes.”[7] It is one thing to note similarities or differences between plants, for example, but science wanted to understand why the similarities or differences were there. The question of why was more easily answered by breaking down the plants to their constituent parts, isolating them and comparing the differences and similarities to each other, and to other plants. This inductive method of science creates a lot of data, and so in order to effectively study it, a classification system became necessary.
Classification became more important as scientific knowledge grew and remains so today. With the vast amounts of data involved, then and now, keeping information organized is important to understanding how species or elements relate to one another. Early chemists worked in a chaotic system in which not everyone used the same terminology. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier created a new nomenclature for chemistry, in which root names and suffixes were used to distinguish elements and compounds. In biology, Carolus Linnaeus developed a system for plants and animals, classifying each by kingdom and phylum, all the way down to individual species. These classification systems and shared nomenclatures allowed scientists to better understand not only what they were studying, but also to better understand each other. Both have become foundational and are still used today.[8]
The fascination with the plants and animals found in the New World led some scientists to become collectors. Scientists joined explorers and merchants on the sea, traveling around the world in search of new items for their collections. Early collections were geological, interesting stones and fossils, collected by scientists in Europe. Later collections included plants as well. Initially, collections were displayed privately, but eventually public collections were put into museums, many of which were open to the public.[9] The public nature of these museums began the democratization of science, at a time when there were already growing ideas about universal rights.
Museums and collections that were open to everyone also led to the rise of amateur scientific societies. Societies had existed since 1660 when the Royal Society was formed, but most were exclusive, meant for the elite. Amateur societies began to be formed in the mid-18th century. Some formed to discuss science as it related to economics and industry, such as the fairly informal Lunar Society. The Manchester Lit and Phil, on the other hand, formed in 1781, soon had chapters across England. As more people became interested in science during the Enlightenment, more societies came into existence, both formal and informal.[10] As public museums had, amateur scientific societies helped to democratize and legitimize science and allowed more people to begin to satisfy their scientific curiosity.
Conclusion
The Enlightenment is associated with political revolution and new economic ideals, and the factors that led to enlightened thinking also reinforced the optimistic and systematic ideas of Francis Bacon. His ideas, and the work of the scientist who followed him, changed the way science was thought of and practiced. His belief that “knowledge is power” and his quest for society to form a foundational knowledge of the natural world, inspired generations of scientists, economists, politicians and revolutionaries. Important classification systems still used today, and the rise of museums and societies, are all in part a result of the enlightened ideals of scientific progress.
[1] Stevenson and Byerly, The Many Faces of Science. p 17.
[2] Stevenson and Byerly, The Many Faces of Science.
[3] Ede and Cormack, A History of Science in Society, Volume II: From the Scientific Revolution to the Present, Third Edition, 2016.
[4] Ede and Cormack, A History of Science in Society, Volume II: From the Scientific Revolution to the Present, Third Edition, 2016.
[5] Stevenson and Byerly, The Many Faces of Science.
[6] Ede and Cormack, A History of Science in Society, Volume II: From the Scientific Revolution to the Present, Third Edition, 2016.
[7]Stevenson and Byerly, The Many Faces of Science. p 15.
[8] Ede and Cormack, A History of Science in Society, Volume II: From the Scientific Revolution to the Present, Third Edition, 2016.
[9]Ede and Cormack, A History of Science in Society, Volume II: From the Scientific Revolution to the Present, Third Edition, 2016.
[10] McLean, John. n.d. “The Popularization of Science | History of Western Civilization II.” https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/the-popularization-of-science/.
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