Scientific Revolution
Scientific Revolution – Documents Packet
Primary and secondary documents are the backbone of historical research. Primary sources give us a first hand account of an event, while secondary sources give us a broader perspective on an event, given time, distance and new insight. As students of history, we must possess the ability to properly analyze a document in order to understand its value. This packet of documents relating to the “scientific revolution” of the 16th & 17th centuries is designed to sharpen your historical thinking skills.
Assignment:
1. Read each document. 2. Discuss what each document is about. 3. Write: What challenges did scientific minded people faced during the 16th and 17th Century? 4. Which documents are most useful in helping you answer the question above? Why? Give examples of individual documents.
|Document 1 |
|SECONDARY SOURCE: Michael Postan, “Why Was Science Backward in the Middle Ages?” in A Short History of Science: Origins and Results of the Scientific |
|Revolution 1991. |
|It is generally agreed that the Middle Ages preserved for the use of later times the science of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Therein lies both the |
|scientific achievement and the scientific failure of the medieval civilization. . . . What the Middle Ages took over they did not very much enrich. |
|Indeed so small was their own contribution that historians of science are apt to regard the Middle Ages as something of a pause or vacuum in |
|scientific advancement. . . . although some advance on planes both purely intellectual and technical there was; yet taken together and placed against |
|the vast panorama of medieval life, or indeed against the
Primary and secondary documents are the backbone of historical research. Primary sources give us a first hand account of an event, while secondary sources give us a broader perspective on an event, given time, distance and new insight. As students of history, we must possess the ability to properly analyze a document in order to understand its value. This packet of documents relating to the “scientific revolution” of the 16th & 17th centuries is designed to sharpen your historical thinking skills.
Assignment:
1. Read each document. 2. Discuss what each document is about. 3. Write: What challenges did scientific minded people faced during the 16th and 17th Century? 4. Which documents are most useful in helping you answer the question above? Why? Give examples of individual documents.
|Document 1 |
|SECONDARY SOURCE: Michael Postan, “Why Was Science Backward in the Middle Ages?” in A Short History of Science: Origins and Results of the Scientific |
|Revolution 1991. |
|It is generally agreed that the Middle Ages preserved for the use of later times the science of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Therein lies both the |
|scientific achievement and the scientific failure of the medieval civilization. . . . What the Middle Ages took over they did not very much enrich. |
|Indeed so small was their own contribution that historians of science are apt to regard the Middle Ages as something of a pause or vacuum in |
|scientific advancement. . . . although some advance on planes both purely intellectual and technical there was; yet taken together and placed against |
|the vast panorama of medieval life, or indeed against the