Intellectual Revolutions that Defined Society

• Intellectual revolutions are periods where paradigm shifts occur, challenging widely embraced scientific beliefs, as seen historically with the replacement of Aristotelian ethics and Christian morality by instrumental reasoning or cost-benefit analysis
• Western science, born with the ancient Greeks, explained the world in terms of natural laws rather than myths about gods and heroes
• The most influential figure in Western science until the 1600s was Aristotle, whose theories were eventually challenged and overthrown due to factors like experimentation and the Renaissance scholars uncovering contradictory Greek authors
• The slow process of dismantling Aristotle's cosmology began with Copernicus, leading to new questions and theories about the universe until Isaac Newton synthesized the new data into more accurate explanations
• Nicolas Copernicus, in the Copernican Revolution, challenged the theory of perfectly circular orbits around the Earth by accounting for irregularities with smaller circular orbits (epicycles) that explained retrogradations seen in orbits
• In the Ptolemaic universe, there were around 80 epicycles attached to ten crystalline spheres, with Copernicus reducing the number of epicycles from 80 to 34 by placing the sun at the center of the universe and having the earth orbit it
• Copernicus' book, "Concerning the Revolutions of the Celestial Worlds" published in 1543, laid the foundations for a revolution in how Europeans viewed the world and its place in the universe
• Kepler, a brilliant mathematician, realized that Brahe's data showed the planetary orbits were not circular but elliptical
• Galileo, armed with a telescope, saw sunspots, craters on the moon, and four moons orbiting Jupiter, which challenged the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic view of the universe
• Galileo's work was the first comprehensive attack on the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic cosmic model, treating celestial objects as subject to the same laws as terrestrial objects
• Newton, inspired by observing an apple fall, realized the force pulling the apple to earth was the same force keeping the moon in its orbit, leading to the invention of calculus to prove this mathematically
• Isaac Newton's genius in physics was in his ability to take isolated bits and pieces of the puzzle collected by his predecessors and fit them together
• Newton's synthesis, although simple in retrospect, took tremendous imagination and creativity to break the bonds of the old way of thinking and see a radically different picture
• Newton's theory of gravity had staggering implications to the mentality of the 1600s, as it revealed that physical laws apply the same throughout the universe
• Newton's work completed the fusion of math, Aristotelian logic, and experimentation into what we call the scientific method
• The printing of Newton's book, Principia Mathematica, in 1687 is often seen as the start of the Enlightenment (1687-1789), marking a significant turning point in history
• Charles Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 ushered in a new era in the intellectual history of humanity
• Darwin's theory of biological evolution completed the Copernican revolution initiated three centuries earlier, radically changing our conception of the universe and the place of humanity in it
• Darwin drew out for biology the notion of nature as a lawful system of matter in motion, explaining adaptations and diversity of organisms through natural laws
• William Paley's Natural Theology (1802) elaborated the argument-from-design as a forceful demonstration of the existence of the Creator
• Paley argued that the functional design of the human eye provided conclusive evidence of an all-wise Creator
• The Bridgewater Treatises, published between 1833 and 1840, set forth "the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation"
• Advances in physical science had driven humanity's conception of the universe to a split-personality state of affairs, persisting into the mid-nineteenth century
• Scientific explanations, derived from natural laws, dominated the world of nonliving matter, while supernatural explanations accounted for the origin and configuration of living creatures
• Darwin resolved this conceptual schizophrenia by introducing his theory of evolution
• Sigmund Freud, born in 1856, revolutionized society's understanding and treatment of mental illness through psychoanalysis
• Before psychoanalysis, mental illness was considered 'organic', originating from brain deterioration or disease
• Freud's theories rejected purely organic explanations of mental illness, proposing that neurotic people had working hardware but faulty software
• Psychoanalysis shifted the focus from organic causes to inner psychic conflicts and early childhood traumas, blurring the line between sane and insane
• Freud's psychoanalysis shifted focus from organic causes to inner psychic conflicts and early childhood traumas
• According to Freud, everyone had an Oedipal crisis and could potentially become mentally ill
• Psychoanalysis, though historically significant, is now regarded as almost entirely incorrect in its conception of the mind
• Psychoanalysis is criticized for its lack of efficacy in treating mental illness, unlike psychopharmacology and cognitive-behavioral therapies
• Freud's significance lies in providing a new way of interpreting behaviors, suggesting buried motives, desires, and beliefs in the unconscious that control conscious thought and behavior
• Mesoamerica, from Mexico to Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, developed in isolation from other ancient civilizations
• The Maya civilization was advanced in science, using Maya hieroglyphs to record knowledge and making accurate astronomical predictions
• The Aztecs assimilated knowledge from the Maya, describing their astronomical observations in manuscripts
• Mesoamerican civilizations had achievements in technology and invention, such as the manufacture of rubber and the use of pitched ceilings in buildings
• The Maya were the first to use pitched ceilings in their buildings after inventing the corbelled vault
• Aztec city builders understood public sanitation, with public latrines found along highways and canoes transporting sewage to prevent pollution of Lake Texcoco