Talk:Scientific Revolution

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Capitalization of title?

The following discussion is about whether the article Scientific Revolution should be moved to Scientific revolution. Folowing the discussion the move was made on 27 July 2009.

Scientific Revolution → Scientific revolution — Not a proper noun. — Jacob Lundberg (talk) 23:38, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

• Comment, This was moved to the current name because of a similarity to Industrial Revolution referring to a specific time period. A new name 2008 (talk) 00:58, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
• It is a proper noun, and the capitalisation should be corrected in the text. Knepflerle (talk) 09:28, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
  • "It is a proper noun" is, in this context, devoid of semantic content. A "proper noun" simply means one which is conventionally capitalised, so that, for example, "Tuesday" is a proper noun, whereas the equivalent French "mardi" isn't. Therefore to say "this should be capitalised because it is a proper noun" amounts to "this should be capitalised because it should be capitalised".
    • The definition of proper noun is not that it's conventionally capitalized. Proper nouns are nouns that refer to "unique" entities, as opposed to common nouns that describe a class of entities. In German, for example, both proper and common nouns are always capitalized. Jafeluv (talk) 20:27, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
      • OK, the situation in German is different (as it was in 17th century English), and "conventionally capitalized noun" cannot be regarded as a universally applicable definition of "proper noun". However, the point really was that what is called a "proper" noun is not an absolute, but is rather defined by convention. As far as English is concerned, the concept "proper noun" has the same extension as "conventionally capitalized noun", and the fact that the same is not so in all languages is irrelevant. The example of "Tuesday" was intended simply to illustrate the fact that the concept of "proper noun" is defined by convention rather than by a logical principle, so that the extension of the term may vary depending on what convention one follows, as it does between French and English. Another example I could have taken is "French", which is regarded as a proper noun in English, whereas the equivalent in French is regarded as a common noun. There is a lot more that could be said about this concept, which is far more complex than it looks at first glance, but it is already distinctly off topic for this page. In this case the point I was trying to make was really that those of us who regard "scientific revolution" as a proper noun will probably want it capitalized, while those of us who don't won't, so that saying that it is or is not a proper noun does not solve anything. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:00, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
• Neutral, a quick scouring of sources on the revolution show conflicting results; some use the proper noun context and others do not. Whatever decision is made, I think we should alter the intro. to reflect both usages, with the ultimate article namesake taking precedence. — ^{\`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`/} (talk • contribs) 09:34, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Unless a usage is notable, there is no need to document it - there is no need to document every misspelling and miss-usage we can find on the web. 199.125.109.58 (talk) 20:29, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
• Proposed solution: I've wondered about this myself. It is premature to be voting. Rather than basing the decision on our own conclusions and opinions, we should follow the usage in the majority of the most reliable sources: current encyclopedias and other leading reference works. If usage in the most reliable sources is close to even, I suggest not capitalizing the term for two reasons:

1. There is a long term trend in the English language to reduce capitalization of such "made up" proper nouns.
2. British English tends to capitalize less than American English. WP:ENGVAR recommends choosing spellings and usages that are accepted in all the national varieties of English.

As a beginning for the research, I made a new subsection below where we can record what we find. Finell (Talk) 19:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

• Support; it is usual in many Wikipedia projects to prefer lower case, where usage is varied. We don't need to use capitals to call out a keyword; we have wikilinks for that. --Una Smith (talk) 04:51, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia has its own house style, and it is a mistake to suggest following the majority of existing encyclopedias, as has been done above. Wikipedia policy is unambiguous here: the naming conventions policy says Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is almost always capitalized in English. It is quite clear that the expression is not almost always capitalized: otherwise this discussion would not be taking place. It follows that the article must be renamed. (The brief list below begins to suggest that the majority usage supports this anyway, but even if it didn't we should follow Wikipedia policy). JamesBWatson (talk) 16:04, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
• Support per JamesBWatson above and #Usage in reliable sources below. Jafeluv (talk) 20:31, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Usage in reliable sources

The following sources use Scientific Revolution

The following sources use scientific revolution

• Encyclopaedia Britannica (2002 CD-ROM and online editions) Finell (Talk) 19:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (search results for "scientific revolution"): Lower case is the majority usage; there is some variation among the several articles, by different authors, that use the term. Finell (Talk) 19:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
• "Scientific Revolution" in Encarta: Uses lower case throughout the body of the article. Finell (Talk) 19:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
• Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World: Capitalized in the article title, uncapitalized in running text. Jafeluv (talk) 20:31, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
• A Dictionary of British History: Uncapitalized. Jafeluv (talk) 20:31, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

This change may be causing confusion

As I suggested in the discussion below, the recent lower casing of the article title may have led to confusion here between the Scientific Revolution as a specific historical period and the general concept of a scientific revolution as discussed by Thomas Kuhn in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

I think the capitalization made a useful distinction and should be restored. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:07, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

This may have been a contributory factor, but I don't see that it can have been a major cause of misunderstanding. Anyone who has read the first sentence of the lead can see that the article is about a specific historic period. just looking at the title, however, it is easy to see how it could be taken as a general term. It is not obvious to me, however, that this would be much less so if the title were capitalised. It seems to me that it the article title were "The scientific revolution" then it would be 100% clear from a first glance that it refers to a specific event. Generally Wikipedia does not use definite articles at the start of article titles, but there is provision for exceptions, and I think there is a case for making one here. WP:THE gives "If a word without a definite article would have a general meaning, while the same word has a specific and identifiable meaning ...", which, it seems to me, clearly applies here. However, it goes on to specify "...if there is justification to have separate articles for both meanings". I think there is such justification, if someone with enough relevant knowledge is prepared to write an article on the general concept. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:17, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization of "Scientific Revolution"?

Shouldn't the Scientific Revolution be capitalized as a unique, specific time period just as the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution are?--Dustinnewman26 (talk) 02:01, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Although I agree with you, you may want to consider the earlier discussion that resulted in the current form. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:14, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I just checked the Google NGram Viewer and found that the usage of fully capitalized Scientific Revolution has been growing of late, coming to surpass the lower case scientific revolution around 1995. The difference, however, never seemed to be very great.

Since the Chicago Manual of Style's usage for names of historical or cultural periods or events depends on usage (Jazz Age and Industrial Revolution but not baroque period or green revolution), our question seems to be a tossup. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:13, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I have done a further analysis of capitalization of the phrase "the scientific revolution", where the definite article "the" more clearly restricts the meaning to the historical event. In this case there has been an increasing preponderance favoring capitalization since 1985. It isn't an obsolete usage. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:54, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 18 April 2014

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. Disagreement hinged on whether or not this is a proper noun. Some said it was, some said it wasn't. I took a look and I think it probably should be capitalized, but honestly to draw that conclusion from this move request would be absurd. I feel safe calling the result of this discussion "no consensus". (non-admin closure) Red Slash 22:35, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

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Scientific revolution → ? – This article address a particular era during which a number of particularly significant scientific breakthroughs were made; isn't this why, therefore, that – like the Industrial Revolution example previously given – it's given the name "Scientific Revolution" (or perhaps "The [S/s]cientific [R/r]evolution"), while "[S/s]cientific revolution" can/is used to describe/refer to any one of these and other breakthroughs across a (much) longer period (regardless of whether they merit it)...? Scan the media and popular science books, for instance... Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:53, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support If this is about a discreet historical event, title-case capitalization is appropriate. At this lowercase title, I would've expected a more general topic, such as Kuhn's theories included in the hatnote. --BDD (talk) 17:54, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
• Moderate Support for changing title to "Scientific Revolution". Title-case capitalization seems appropriate for this subject and, as discussed above, is the most common usage (although not by a strong margin). SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:04, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

After reading Sardanaphalus's justification based on the confusing nature of the current title, I've changed my recommendation to Support. In response to some comments below, Scientific Revolution is the proper name of a specific historical period.SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:21, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

• Support capitalization to help clarify that it's the historical period rather than Kuhn's paradigm shift.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 01:20, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose – we don't use caps that way in WP; we don't use title case, and we don't use caps to clarify that something is an important concept; we only use them for proper names. See MOS:CAPS. This revolution is frequently referred to with lower case in sources, including many of the sources cited in this article, making it very clear that it is not a proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 05:26, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

  I suspect that the closer a source is to a printed origin, the more likely it is to use "Scientific Revolution" rather than "S/scientific revolution". Meanwhile, I don't understand how a name for this particular view of this particular period in history wouldn't qualify as a proper noun... as well as the Industrial Revolution, there seem to be other examples, such as the Commercial Revolution, Cultural Revolution and the (British) Agricultural Revolution (an instance of an agricultural revolution)..? Thanks for sharing your view. Sardanaphalus (talk) 23:39, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose capitalizing: This is not actually comparable to the Industrial Revolution, which is a discrete period in general history, across all aspects of history. The scientific revolution was, as the article says, "the emergence of modern science during the early modern period", i.e. it's a discrete period in the history of science, not all of history broadly, though of course it had a profound effect upon it in the long run. English is moving more and more away from capitalizing stuff just to make it seem important. This is a great opportunity to be descriptive instead of prescriptive, especially not prescribing Victorian-style Capitalization of Stuff We Find Significant. We don't need to capitalize jazz age (that's a redir, and the real article needs to be RMed) or computer revolution either. I look forward to the day when we stop capitalizing industrial revolution for that matter, especially since it wasn't really a revolution; we're using that word figuratively, as in British invasion in pop music (that's a redir for now, and the real article needs to be moved; we don't even capitalize entire music genres, so we shouldn't do it to fads or waves in music genres). Industrial Revolution might stay at the upper-cased name for years, along with Age of Enlightenment and a few others, but most of the rest of these things should be down-cased now.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:18, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I understand your stylistic preference but capitalization is not just an archaic way to indicate "Stuff We Find Significant." It serves the useful function of indicating that we're talking about the specific historical period, not the general concept.SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:21, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I think "specific" and "proper" names are not synonymous. It's also not at all clear that the scientific revolution was a "specific historical period." It's a much more general concept applied to a long fuzzy period of time. Dicklyon (talk) 15:35, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

And it's not a specific period in general human history, but just in the history of science. Didn't I already say that? Why is it that any time a style debate comes up, the pro-weird-style position ignores as if unwritten any arguments it doesn't like instead of logically defending against them?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• Well, I guess it seems to me that discarding "Scientific Revolution" and the like – whose capitals distinguish instance from kind – is a backward step; a loss in descriptive potential rather than an opportunity. Do you see the distinction between this and – I agree – the misuse of capitals to Capitalize Stuff Believed To Be Important, etc..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:26, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose capitalizing, per MOS:CAPS; "scientific revolution" is not a proper name. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:35, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

  Would you say something that identifies, collectively, a number of instances (of, in this case, scientific revolution) during a particular time period would be a proper name/noun..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:26, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose capitalizing. I have made a search in Google Scholar for "Scientific Revolution". The obtained listing is not case sensitive. I have examined the first 50, 43 low case, 7 capital.--Auró (talk) 21:24, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

As I found in the Google NGram search above, you get different results whether you're searching for "scientific revolution" or "the scientific revolution." Without the definite article you get hits on general discussions of the topic of scientific revolutions; the definite article constrains you to the Scientific Revolution of the Early Modern period. There the capitalized form predominates. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:08, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I just redid your search and found that many of the lower case forms are book titles, which are listed for (apparently in catalog form) in all lower case. The titles of the books when examined, and in many cases the quotations in the search, give Scientific Revolution in upper case. Some examples follow:

[BOOK] The scientific revolution

S Shapin - 1996 - books.google.com

" There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it."

BOOK] Discipline and experience: The mathematical way in the scientific revolution

P Dear - 1995 - books.google.com

Although the Scientific Revolution has long been regarded as the beginning of modern science...

[BOOK] The scientific revolution: a historiographical inquiry

HF Cohen - 1994 - books.google.com

In this first book-length historiographical study of the Scientific Revolution...

[BOOK] The scientific revolution and the origins of modern science

J Henry, J Breuilly, R Porter - 1997 - thedivineconspiracy.org

The Scientific Revolution is the name given by historians of science to the period in European history when, arguably, the conceptual, methodological and institutional foundations of modern science were first established....

It looks like your conclusion of the preponderance of lower casing needs to be reexamined. SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:30, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Your comments show that the proper assessment for the use of upper or lower casing for the term "scientific revolution" in the scientific literature is not a simple matter, and needs some careful consideration. Nevertheless, I feel that it is the way to follow to decide on the subject, if we are to avoid personal opinions or preferences. For the moment I suspend my opposition to the change. Also, I think that in addition to type case, the use of the article "the" has to be included in the consideration for the title change.--Auró (talk) 19:54, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

• Could the proposer please specify what change he has in mind. The article was previously changed from Scientific Revolution to Scientific revolution and there has been previous discussion of the question of capitalization. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:16, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

• As this issue has a history, I avoided making a specific proposal. I imagine, though, that "Scientific Revolution", like "Industrial Revolution" is the solution. When I clicked on a link to this article, then saw its (current) name/title, I thought it'd be about what makes a scientific revolution, not the historical period. Sardanaphalus (talk) 18:49, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• If we stick with lower case, Digital Revolution should be next on the de-caps cleanup list. While it's intended to mirror the usage at Industrial Revolution, that's just WP:OR+WP:CRYSTAL. The Industrial Rev. changed the entire world, radically, in many, many ways, and a preponderance of sources capitalize it the same way they do the Renaissance. The "digital revolution", however, is too new for us to determine what its lasting impact may be. For all we now, a nanotechnological revolution of quantum computing and limitless "making" is around the corner and is going blow the impact of our few-decade-old dig. rev. completely out of the water. Meanwhile, most of the predictions being made ca. 1993 about the utter transformation of the world by computers and the Internet have mostly proven to have been nothing but cyberpunk fantasies. If anything, mobile telecommunications has had more of an impact than "the Net" and PCs in many ways. (See also merge proposal RfC at Talk:Information revolution - the fact that some would or would not consider the mobile rev. to be part of or spearaete form the dig. rev. is part of the problem with these articles, and among the multiple reasons taht treating them as universally accepted proper names is misguided and ill-considered.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:17, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  • "Digital Revolution" is not even close to being treated as a proper name by others. Let's fix it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:46, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Unlike "Digital Revolution" and "Scientific Revolution", "[the] digital revolution" and "[the] scientific revolution" prompt me to ask: "Which [single] digital revolution?" "Which [single] scientific revolution?". Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• Question. If "Scientific Revolution" should be "S/scientific revolution", should "Industrial Revolution" become "I/industrial revolution", "Agricultural Revolution" become "A/agricultural revolution", "Commercial Revolution" become "C/commerical revolution", "Cultural Revolution" become "C/cultural revolution – and so on..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:33, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

          Belated answer: Probably yes, mostly, but it'll depend on contextual details. The Cultural Revolution, for example, is something different from the others; it's political sloganeering like the New Deal and other such phrases, when used in a general abstract way in discussing communism (though in some places it was actually pretty much a real, armed revolution, when used in a more specific meaning, in which case it's like the American Revolution or the Glorious Revolution, a capitalized conflict name). It presently mostly seems borderline conventional to capitalize Agricultural Revolution and Industrial Revolution as general world-changing phases of human cultural shift, but this capitalization isn't universal and certainly isn't necessary. It's also misleading, because there were multiple agricultural revolutions in different parts of the world, which sometimes had no connection to each other at all. The AR in the Americas was independent of those in Eureasia and Africa (which are generally thought to be related to each other, starting around the Fertile Crescent and radiating outward over centuries, though in fits and starts, and not in a centralized way, but through piecemeal adoption of techniques and behaviors which varies from place to place and cultural exchange to cultural exchange. And there is still some debate about this diffusing model, especially for eastern Asia and southern Africa). "Commercial revolution" is clearly not a proper name, and isn't even a very well-used term. It's a descriptive appellation for a vague period, or a series of vaguely connected cultural shifts, in one region's history, which to our modern eyes culminated one kind of shift, toward modern commerce and the ascendancy of the merchant/middle class and of capitalism. Not a term anyone would have used during or immediately after it (which makes it similar to "agricultural revolution" in being an anachronistic retro-label we've come up with in modern times, while qualitatively different from the industrial revolution, the digital revolution, etc., etc. (even "industrial revolution" was used in the 1800s, while it was still ongoing, and notably the term was introduced in a period when Capitalize Because Its Important was a typical style in English, one which has long since been abandoned except in marketing).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:15, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Scientific revolution in the modern period ?

Do we have this stage in the article?--Tranletuhan (talk) 09:34, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Since the article is concerned with the Scientific Revolution as a specific historical transformation that began "in 1543 and continued through the late 17th century," it wouldn't really be appropriate to extend it into the modern period.

I suspect you may be thinking of scientific revolutions in the generic sense, as discussed by Thomas Kuhn in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

I wonder if the recent lower casing of the article title has led to confusion here between the Scientific Revolution as a specific historical period and the general concept of a scientific revolution. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 19:01, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 31 March 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus is that the title is a proper noun and should be capitalized. Aervanath (talk) 20:07, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

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Scientific revolution → Scientific Revolution – See the previous discussions above. The term "scientific revolution" can have two meanings. One sense is any major change in any field of science, such as how the introduction of the atomic model brought a scientific revolution in chemistry or the discovery of DNA led to a scientific revolution in biology. Currently the Wikipedia article describing these sorts of events is paradigm shift, someone could establish another Wikipedia article called scientific revolution (social change). Another sense of the term is the particular event called the "Scientific Revolution" which began in the late 1500s. This Wikipedia article is about that particular event which does use a proper noun.

There is debate from 2009-14 about the capitalization in this article. I agree that most sources do not capitalize the term "scientific revolution", but also some sources refer to the general concept of a scientific revolution while others which use the term as a proper noun do. The content in this Wikipedia article is about one event, and therefore the term here is a proper noun.

I wanted the move because I am developing an article about an event which sources call a modern scientific revolution in its field, and currently, there is no Wikipedia article on the general concept of "scientific revolution". There are many "scientific revolutions" in various fields of science, but there is only one "Scientific Revolution" which established modern science itself. See also that Category:Scientific revolution currently contains only articles about the 1500s, when probably we need a category for all the later developments which sources call scientific revolutions. Increasing clarity here would clarify other Wikipedia content. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:19, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• @Jacob Lundberg, Knepflerle, Jafeluv, JamesBWatson, and Finell:
• @SteveMcCluskey, Dustinnewman26, Sardanaphalus, and Machine Elf 1735:
• @Auró, Dicklyon, SMcCandlish, and BDD:

You all commented in the past. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:24, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose – the article is already about the historical concept, not an event. And sources don't agree on there being a proper named event, though some go that way. Accommodating your new material shouldn't require pretending that this one is a proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 16:59, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• Support- It is the title of an important historical event. We could compare it to "Industrial Revolution", that is capitalized.--Auró (talk) 22:20, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose Why has this been brought up again? All the reasons given in the previous discussion still apply just as much now as they did then, and unless there is some reason to think that things have changed since then there is no reason to repeat the same discussion. I stand by what I said in the previous discussion. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:09, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support The article still seems to describe a single event or historical period, though the lede is mealy-mouthed. Industrial Revolution doesn't have "a concept used by historians to describe the emergence of" industrial technology or anything. --BDD (talk) 15:52, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support As I documented in the previous discussion, the term Scientific Revolution (in caps) is an accepted term for this well-defined historical event. Like most such events, the chronological limits of this period are somewhat uncertain, but the concept is well defined. As to the question of why this was brought up again; it seems appropriate to periodically reconsider such topics, especially where there was close division, arising in part from the ambiguity of the proposal. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 17:50, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support. This article was created on January 14, 2002, within a day of Wikipedia's first birthday, with lowercase "r" in the main title header. On January 28, 2007, it was moved to uppercase "R", with the edit summary, "In its uncapitalized form, "scientific revolution" can refer to lots of things. Only "Scientific Revolution" is a specific event/period (cf. Industrial Revolution)." On July 27, 2009, it was moved back to lowercase "r" with the summary, "Change to correct capitalization per naming policy: discussed on article's talk page". The talk page has been in existence since January 28, 2003 and has three archived sections. The discussions, both philosophical and scientific, present well-defined arguments for uppercase and lowercase, with the uppercase argument being the more convincing one per nomination, BDD and SteveMcCluskey.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 01:08, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support for the reasons stated above. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:37, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Wild bad chronology

Sock banter-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 18:36, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Note. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A1aa1ghl56t (talk • contribs) 10:38, 27 October 2021 (UTC) In the first paragraph, it says that Copernicus and 1543 are "often cited as marking the beginning of the Scientific Revolution". Recently Usflibstudent21 has said "The Scientific Revolution was enabled by advances in book production." Pythagoras, Philolaus, Aristarchus, Seleucus and others put forward systems like that of Copernicus without printed books. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A1aa1ghl56t (talk • contribs) 10:46, 27 October 2021 (UTC) unsourced commentary does not trump sourced scholarship. Please do not delete sourced text. See Gingerich, Owen. "Copernicus and the Impact of Printing." Vistas in Astronomy 17 (1975): 201-218.; also Corones, Anthony. "Copernicus, Printing and the Politics of Knowledge." in 1543 and All That (Springer, Dordrecht, 2000) pp. 271-289. Rjensen (talk) 11:11, 27 October 2021 (UTC) A liberal says that Pythagoras used books printed with moveable type. WP rules state that no sources are needed for statements of the obvious. Logic and chronology are obvious. Copernicus's heliostaticism is meaningless, according to relativity. I am not sure why a meaningless theory should be the beginning of anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A1aa1ghl56t (talk • contribs) 15:28, 27 October 2021 (UTC) tthe works of Pythagoras, Philolaus, Aristarchus, Seleucus and others were hand copied in a few copies and MOST were lost. Starting with Copernicus the writings were printed in hundreds or thousands of copies and were no longer easily lost. The availability of new science grew exponentially--enabling more and more researchers to join in . that was the Scientific Revolution. People who disbelieve in science will not be at home in Wikipedia--please stay at Facebook where you will be appreciated. Rjensen (talk) 00:28, 28 October 2021 (UTC) Gingerich used 276 copies of the first edition and 325 copies of the second edition of "De revolutionibus...". It was common knowledge in Europe that Copernicus was putting forward a heliostatic system for years before 1543. Copernicus's Commentariolus was not printed before about 1878. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:4E9F:D101:E1F3:325:A96A:C885 (talk) 11:50, 28 October 2021 (UTC) It is generally said that Pythagoras wrote nothing. Our knowledge is derived from remarks made about him. Hence the are no "works", long-hand or printed with moveable type. See Pythagoras. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1a5gkl4sz (talk • contribs) 15:48, 30 October 2021 (UTC) Wood-block printing appeared in China in the 8th century A.D. Bi Sheng introduced printing with moveable type into China in 1040 A.D. There was no increase in the number of heliocentric or heliostatic books at that time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1a5gkl4sz (talk • contribs) 15:56, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

A quite comical - but nevertheless peculiar and damaging to Wikipedia's reputation - Anglocentrism in the composition of this article.

(1) The first point of concern was what I saw in the lead, unsourced it will not surprise you to learn, which makes the rather grandiose claim that "The completion of the Scientific Revolution is attributed to the "grand synthesis" of Isaac Newton's 1687 Principia." In the Encyclopedia of the Scientific Revolution: From Copernicus to Newton(2000, ed. W. Applebaum, Routledge, NY) I cannot find this phrase or sentiment. It continues "The work formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, thereby completing the synthesis of a new cosmology." Most certainly, but does that signify a "grand synthesis" that ended the Scientific Revolution? Perhaps, but I would be very skeptical,

(2) The first paragraph of the introduction proceeds reasonably and without controversy, highlighting how jolting, paradigm-shifting advances in science have often been term "revolutionary" (calling on the authority of conventionally celebrated figures of]the Scientific Revolution such as Alexis Clairaut and Antoine Lavoisier. However, the article then goes on to quote the English theologian and poet William Whewell... using a quote from him to say "this gave rise" to the "common view of the Scientific Revolution today", as elucidated by the Encyclopedia Britannica

(3) The next paragraph appears to me as a travesty of Original Research. Repeating my edit summary "the author of this paragraph seems to be making a lineal causal link from Copernicus to Newton to Bacon to Galileo as the "Beginning, Middle, and End" of the Scientific Revolution. Such a claim would require exquisite referencing to overcome its presumed extreme reductionism/oversimplification."

(4) In the section Significance we a treated to a conventional summation of the SR effects by one Joseph Ben-David. Followed by a 1611 poem from English religious writer John Donne (seriously!), some commentary from mid-20th-century English historian Herbert Butterfield and then we here from Australian gentleman called Peter Harrison, who largely focuses on religion and works at a 5th-rate University in Australia, who tells the reader that Christianity was a major contributor to the Scientific Revolution.

(5) In the section Empiricism, seven individuals are mentioned, all of them British, except for Descartes who is aligned against the empiricists as a rationalist (although this is not fully explained for the reader).

(6) In the section Baconian Science (what?), we are told "The philosophical underpinnings of the Scientific Revolution were laid out by Francis Bacon, who has been called the father of empiricism." Even Bacon himself acknowledged Italian philosopher Bernardino Telesio, who had influenced Pierre Gassendi long before Bacon came on the scene. Instead we are only told of Hume, Berkeley, Hobbes, and William Gilbert. As if [[[Condillac]], Alhazen, Didorot, Helvétius, Moritz Schlick and Rudolf Carnap never existed. Also the reader would have no idea that the extreme empiricist philosophy of Berkeley for instance, would not only be intolerable to contemporary scientific minds but his theories of optics have been decisively disproven by modern medical, technological, and scientific advances.

I could go on, but I'm running out of steam. Time fae ma bed. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 08:31, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Not Sure how do you do responses, but to the baconian science section issue, just saying that Alhazen was not read by all of these, and the scientific revolution was adopted somewhat independently, or maybe there is some kind of link I just do not know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.83.186.34 (talk) 06:39, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Feel free to edit the article. Dan100 (Talk) 20:48, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I suspect the author leaned heavily on Steven Shapin's "The Scientific Revolution" - the general scope of the article follows Chapter 1, at least. That said, I would consider challenging the term "revolution" and instead consider that the events that comprised the scientific revolution were in fact more evolutionary. And to Shapin's point, the "revolution" wasn't reverting back to anything; if anything, it was refuting Aristotelian philosophy. AFineClaret (talk) 19:00, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 31 March 2023

In the Wikipedia article on the "Scientific Revolution", the photo associated with the "Renaissance" hyperlink i.e. found ion the line "...The Scientific Revolution took place in Europe starting towards the second half of the Renaissance period" and the term "Scientific Renaissance" seems inappropriate, perhaps a deliberate lampoon. I would suggest another photo, perhaps of Isaac Newton. 2601:603:4C7E:4C10:1531:83E2:2047:ACE8 (talk) 23:15, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. The person who loves reading (talk) 23:18, 31 March 2023 (UTC)