Editing Science (section)

=== Renaissance ===
{{Main|Scientific Revolution|Science in the Renaissance}}
[[File:De Revolutionibus manuscript p9b.jpg|thumb|Drawing of the heliocentric model as proposed by the Copernicus's ''{{lang|la|[[De revolutionibus orbium coelestium]]}}''|alt=Drawing of planets' orbit around the Sun]]
New developments in optics played a role in the inception of the [[Renaissance]], both by challenging long-held [[metaphysical]] ideas on perception, as well as by contributing to the improvement and development of technology such as the [[camera obscura]] and the [[telescope]]. At the start of the Renaissance, [[Roger Bacon]], [[Vitello]], and [[John Peckham]] each built up a scholastic [[ontology]] upon a causal chain beginning with sensation, perception, and finally [[apperception]] of the individual and universal [[theory of forms|forms]] of Aristotle.<ref name="Smith2001">{{cite book |last=Smith |first=A. Mark |title=Alhacen's Theory of Visual Perception: A Critical Edition, with English Translation and Commentary, of the First Three Books of Alhacen's ''De Aspectibus'', the Medieval Latin Version of Ibn al-Haytham's ''Kitāb al-Manāẓir'', 2 vols |title-link=De Aspectibus |publisher=[[American Philosophical Society]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-87169-914-5 |series=Transactions of the American Philosophical Society |volume=91 |location=Philadelphia |issue=4–5}}</ref>{{rp|Book I}} A model of vision later known as [[perspectivism]] was [[One-point perspective|exploited and studied]] by the artists of the Renaissance. This theory uses only three of Aristotle's four causes: formal, material, and final.<ref name="Smith1981">{{Cite journal |jstor=231249 |doi=10.1086/352843 |pmid=7040292 |title=Getting the Big Picture in Perspectivist Optics |journal=Isis |volume=72 |issue=4 |pages=568–589 |last1=Smith |first1=A. Mark |year=1981 |s2cid=27806323}}</ref>

In the 16th century, [[Nicolaus Copernicus]] formulated a [[heliocentric model]] of the Solar System, stating that the planets revolve around the Sun, instead of the [[geocentric model]] where the planets and the Sun revolve around the Earth. This was based on a theorem that the [[orbital period]]s of the planets are longer as their orbs are farther from the centre of motion, which he found not to agree with Ptolemy's model.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1177/002182860203300301 |title=Copernicus and the Origin of his Heliocentric System |journal=Journal for the History of Astronomy |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=219–235 |year=2016 |last1=Goldstein |first1=Bernard R. |s2cid=118351058 |url=http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e610/194b7b608cab49e034a542017213d827fb70.pdf |access-date=12 April 2020 |archive-date=12 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200412211013/http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e610/194b7b608cab49e034a542017213d827fb70.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref><!-- Censorship and such from the church -->

[[Johannes Kepler]] and others challenged the notion that the only function of the eye is perception, and shifted the main focus in optics from the eye to the propagation of light.<ref name="Smith1981" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=H. Floris |author-link=Floris Cohen |chapter=Greek nature knowledge transplanted and more: Renaissance Europe |title=How modern science came into the world. Four civilizations, one 17th-century breakthrough |year=2010 |pages=99–156 |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |isbn=978-90-8964-239-4 |edition=2nd}}</ref> Kepler is best known, however, for improving Copernicus' heliocentric model through the discovery of [[Kepler's laws of planetary motion]]. Kepler did not reject Aristotelian metaphysics and described his work as a search for the [[Harmony of the Spheres]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Koestler |first=Arthur |url=https://archive.org/details/sleepwalkershist00koes_0/page/1 |title=The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe |publisher=Penguin |year=1990 |isbn=0-14-019246-8 |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/sleepwalkershist00koes_0/page/1 1] |author-link=Arthur Koestler |orig-date=1959}}</ref> [[Galileo]] had made significant contributions to astronomy, physics and engineering. However, he became persecuted after Pope Urban VIII sentenced him for writing about the heliocentric model.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://galileo.rice.edu/gal/urban.html |title=Pope Urban VIII |last=van Helden |first=Al |year=1995 |website=The Galileo Project |access-date=3 November 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161111033150/http://galileo.rice.edu/gal/urban.html |archive-date=11 November 2016}}</ref>

The [[printing press]] was widely used to publish scholarly arguments, including some that disagreed widely with contemporary ideas of nature.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gingerich |first=Owen |title=Copernicus and the Impact of Printing |journal=Vistas in Astronomy |volume=17 |year=1975 |issue=1 |pages=201–218 |doi=10.1016/0083-6656(75)90061-6 |bibcode=1975VA.....17..201G}}</ref> [[Francis Bacon]] and [[René Descartes]] published philosophical arguments in favour of a new type of non-Aristotelian science. Bacon emphasised the importance of experiment over contemplation, questioned the Aristotelian concepts of formal and final cause, promoted the idea that science should study the [[Physical law|laws of nature]] and the improvement of all human life.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zagorin |first=Perez |title=Francis Bacon |page=84 |year=1998 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-00966-7}}</ref> Descartes emphasised individual thought and argued that mathematics rather than geometry should be used to study nature.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Davis |first1=Philip J. |last2=Hersh |first2=Reuben |year=1986 |title=Descartes' Dream: The World According to Mathematics |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=[[Harcourt Brace Jovanovich]]}}</ref><!-- This updated approach to studies in nature was seen as [[mechanistic]]. discuss -->