Editing Scientific Revolution (section)

==Criticism==
[[File:Ricci Guangqi 2.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Matteo Ricci]] (left) and [[Xu Guangqi]] (right) in [[Athanasius Kircher]], ''La Chine ... Illustrée'', Amsterdam, 1670]]

The idea that modern science took place as a kind of revolution has been debated among historians.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shapin |first1=Steven |title=The Scientific Revolution |date=5 November 2018 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-39834-1 |pages=1–2 |edition=Second}}</ref> A weakness of the idea of a scientific revolution is the lack of a systematic approach to the question of knowledge in the period comprehended between the 14th and 17th centuries,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shapin |first1=Steven |title=The Scientific Revolution |date=5 November 2018 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-39834-1 |pages=3-4, 67-68}}</ref> leading to misunderstandings on the value and role of modern authors. From this standpoint, the [[continuity thesis]] is the hypothesis that there was no radical discontinuity between the intellectual development of the Middle Ages and the developments in the Renaissance and early modern period and has been deeply and widely documented by the works of scholars like Pierre Duhem, John Hermann Randall, Alistair Crombie and William A. Wallace, who proved the preexistence of a wide range of ideas used by the followers of the Scientific Revolution thesis to substantiate their claims. Thus, the idea of a scientific revolution following the Renaissance is—according to the continuity thesis—a myth. Some continuity theorists point to earlier intellectual revolutions occurring in the Middle Ages, usually referring to either a European [[Renaissance of the 12th century]]<ref>[[#Grant|Grant]]</ref><ref>Hannam, James (31 October 2012) [http://biologos.org/blog/medieval-christianity-and-the-rise-of-modern-science-part-2 Medieval Christianity and the Rise of Modern Science, Part 2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140307003619/http://biologos.org/blog/medieval-christianity-and-the-rise-of-modern-science-part-2 |date=7 March 2014 }}. biologos.org</ref> or a medieval [[Science in the medieval Islamic world|Muslim scientific revolution]],<ref>Hassan, Ahmad Y and Hill, Donald Routledge  (1986), ''Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History'', p. 282, [[Cambridge University Press]].</ref><ref>[[Abdus Salam|Salam, Abdus]], Dalafi, H.R. and Hassan, Mohamed (1994). ''Renaissance of Sciences in Islamic Countries'', p. 162. [[World Scientific]], {{ISBN|9971-5-0713-7}}.</ref><ref>Briffault, Robert (1919). [https://archive.org/details/makingofhumanity00brifrich ''The Making of Humanity'']. London, G. Allen & Unwin ltd. p. 188.</ref> as a sign of continuity.<ref>Huff, Toby E. (2003) ''The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West'', 2nd. ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-52994-8}}. pp. 54–55.</ref>

Another contrary view has been recently proposed by Arun Bala in his [[dialogue|dialogical]] history of the birth of modern science. Bala proposes that the changes involved in the Scientific Revolution—the [[Philosophy of mathematics|mathematical realist]] turn, the mechanical philosophy, the [[atomism]], the central role assigned to the Sun in Copernican heliocentrism—have to be seen as rooted in multicultural influences on Europe. He sees specific influences in [[Ibn al-Haytham|Alhazen]]'s physical optical theory, [[History of science and technology in China|Chinese mechanical technologies]] leading to the perception of the world as a machine, the [[Hindu–Arabic numeral system]], which carried implicitly a new mode of mathematical atomic thinking, and the heliocentrism rooted in ancient Egyptian religious ideas associated with [[Hermeticism]].<ref>Saliba, George (1999). [http://www.columbia.edu/~gas1/project/visions/case1/sci.1.html Whose Science is Arabic Science in Renaissance Europe?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080115070924/http://www.columbia.edu/~gas1/project/visions/case1/sci.1.html |date=15 January 2008 }} [[Columbia University]].</ref> Bala argues that by ignoring such multicultural impacts we have been led to a [[Eurocentrism|Eurocentric]] conception of the Scientific Revolution.<ref>Bala, Arun (2006) ''Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science''. Palgrave Macmillan. {{ISBN|0-230-60979-1}}{{page needed|date=March 2013}}</ref> However, he states: "The makers of the revolution—Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and many others—had to selectively appropriate relevant ideas, transform them, and create new auxiliary concepts in order to complete their task... In the ultimate analysis, even if the revolution was rooted upon a multicultural base it is the accomplishment of Europeans in Europe."<ref>{{cite book|title=The Dialogue of Civilizations in the Birth of Modern Science|last=Bala|first=Arun|date=13 November 2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DZyIDAAAQBAJ|page=176|publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-60121-5 }}</ref> Critics note that lacking documentary evidence of transmission of specific scientific ideas, Bala's model will remain "a working hypothesis, not a conclusion".<ref>{{Cite journal | last = Sobol | first = Peter G. | title = Review of ''The Dialogue of Civilizations and the Birth of Modern Science'' | journal = Isis | volume = 98 | issue = 4 | pages = 829–30 |date=December 2007 | doi = 10.1086/529293}}</ref>

A third approach takes the term "Renaissance" literally as a "rebirth". A closer study of [[Greek philosophy]] and [[Greek mathematics]] demonstrates that nearly all of the so-called revolutionary results of the so-called Scientific Revolution were in actuality restatements of ideas that were in many cases older than those of Aristotle and in nearly all cases at least as old as [[Archimedes]]. Aristotle even explicitly argues against some of the ideas that were espoused during the Scientific Revolution, such as heliocentrism. The basic ideas of the scientific method were well known to Archimedes and his contemporaries, as demonstrated in the discovery of [[buoyancy]]. This approach to the Scientific Revolution reduces it to a period of relearning classical ideas that is very much an extension of the Renaissance. This view does not deny that a change occurred but argues that it was a reassertion of previous knowledge (a renaissance) and not the creation of new knowledge. It cites statements from Newton, Copernicus and others in favour of the [[Pythagoreanism|Pythagorean]] worldview as evidence.<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=228080|title=Copernicus' Relation to Aristarchus and Pythagoras|author=Africa, Thomas W. |journal=Isis|volume=52|issue=3 |year=1961|pages=403–09|doi=10.1086/349478|s2cid=144088134}}</ref><ref>A survey of the debate over the significance of these antecedents is in Lindberg, D.C. (1992) ''The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450''. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr. {{ISBN|0-226-48231-6}}. pp. 355–68.</ref>

In more recent analysis of the Scientific Revolution during this period, there has been criticism of the dominance of male scientists of the time.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Structure of Scientific Revolutions|last=Kuhn|first=Thomas|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1962|isbn=978-0-226-45811-3}}</ref> Female scholars were not given the opportunities that a male scholar would have had, and the incorporation of women's work in the sciences during this time tends to be obscured. Scholars have tried to look into the participation of women in the 17th century in science, and even with sciences as simple as domestic knowledge women were making advances.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Silva|first=Vanessa|date=2014|title=Beyond the Academy – Histories of Gender and Knowledge|journal=Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology|pages=166–67}}</ref> With the limited history provided from texts of the period we cannot know the extent of women's roles in developing the scientific ideas and inventions. Another idea to consider is the way this period influenced even the women scientists of the periods following it. [[Annie Jump Cannon]] was a 20th century astronomer who benefitted from the laws and theories developed from this period; she made several advances in the century following the Scientific Revolution. It was an important period for the future of science, including the incorporation of women into fields using the developments made.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Madame Curie Complex|last=Des Jardins|first=Julie|publisher=The Feminist Press|year=2010|isbn=978-1-55861-613-4|pages=89–90}}</ref>