The Scientific Revolution By Steven Shapin

The Scientific Revolution By Steven Shapin

The Scientific Revolution by Steven Shapin is a book that declares that scientific revolution never happened. Copernicus promotion of heliocentric theory instead of the long-established geocentric theory of the philosophers of the ancient and medieval times marks the beginning of the period of modern science i.e. 1543. This theory gave rise to a new system of physics. The new system includes major contributions by Newton and Galileo. New Mathematical systems, new instruments, and new scientific organizations also appeared since then. Shapin, in his book, denies that scientific revolution ever happened, “There is no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it.” The reason for denial is that modern science is not value-free or objective; rather it is replete with the political and the personal. The book is deeply associated with 17th century science (Monaghen 1996, p. A17)

Shapin accepts the scientific contributions of Copernicus and Newton. In this way, he believes that the scientific revolution was not as coherent as it has been portrayed. There was a change in people's behavior towards thinking about nature and investigating it. However, he does not agree with the view that a unified project was being promoted by the natural philosophers of that era. Shapin believes that the natural philosopher were not objective or radical. They were more self-serving and conservative.

Shapin has explained his ideas by dividing the book into three parts: “What was Known?”; “How was it known?”; and “What was the knowledge for?” the first section of the book is simple as compared to the complexity of the next two. In the first section, Shapin has discussed the ideas, related to nature, that were developed between 1450 and 1700. In the first section, he has made reference ...