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The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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stahrwe

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The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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They thought the Middle Ages were a dark ages, but in fact we know historically that’s not true,” explained Father Haffner, himself a prolific author who has written "Creation and Scientific Creativity," a theological study of Jaki’s thought.[Fr. Haffner's excellent book is available at Christendom Press] He cited great scientists of the medieval Church, in particular Jean Buridan, the 14th century French priest who sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution (Copernicus was also a priest, a fact often overlooked in the Galileo controversy).

Buridan developed the concept of impetus, or momentum theory, which according to Father Haffner “anticipated Newton’s first law of motion by a couple of centuries.” Buridan’s theories were later developed and made known by Nicole Oresme, the bishop of Liseux.

Other pioneering scientists in the medieval Church included St. Albert the Great, who taught St. Thomas Aquinas, and the mystic, Hildergard of Bingen. “They all used the scientific method of observation, the formulation of a hypothesis, and perfecting a hypothesis,” said Father Haffner. He said their findings led Father Jaki to describe their contributions as the “cradle of modern science” because they showed that a world created by God is rational, ordered, good, and therefore attractive to investigate.

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ant

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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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If my memory serves me correctly, the Church considered two books - The Book of God (aka The Bible) and "The Book of Nature"

The Book of Nature is the natural world and the encouragement of its examination.
The Book of God was about man's relationship with his Creator.

The encouragement of the examination of the natural world is evident in the Church's contribution to science.
It's patently false to say there was discouragement by the Church in light of the historical record.

The caution presented by the Church (again, all by memory here) was that causation was difficult if near impossible to ascertain by the limits of man's senses and intellect. Experience was limited to secondary causation. As such, explanations of the natural word were seen as always a work in progress.
There was no such "God did it. So let's stop here and turn the lights out" attitude by religion.
Portraying religion as some simpleton enterprise is disingenuous. Not to mention dumb.

:roll:
Last edited by ant on Mon Mar 17, 2014 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Interbane

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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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Originated? Trial and error methodology dates back to 1600BC. Philosophy on induction dates back to Aristotle. If you want to give a religion credit for trial and error methodology, give credit to Islam. It was far ahead of Christianity in the Middle Ages.

I wonder why you didn't mention the Bacons?
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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Interbane wrote:Originated? Trial and error methodology dates back to 1600BC. Philosophy on induction dates back to Aristotle. If you want to give a religion credit for trial and error methodology, give credit to Islam. It was far ahead of Christianity in the Middle Ages.
Hey, I heard that Aristotle might have helped out a little too.
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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geo wrote:
Interbane wrote:Originated? Trial and error methodology dates back to 1600BC. Philosophy on induction dates back to Aristotle. If you want to give a religion credit for trial and error methodology, give credit to Islam. It was far ahead of Christianity in the Middle Ages.
Hey, I heard that Aristotle might have helped out a little too.

And Bacon goes great with eggs in the morning.
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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Ok, I'm not well studied at history, but during the middle ages weren't there basically 2 ways that a person would get educated then? Either you were born nobility or got into the church education system of priestdom. Were peasants able to become members of the cloth at that time? I have no idea. I wouldn't be surprised if the scientific method had it origins in the church since it (I'm guessing) was the main avenue of education at the time. After all it was a churchman, Gregor Mendel, who ended up having a huge effect on the figuring out of evolution.
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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Wow, gotta love the web site used for the source of this article:

THE HERESY HUNTER
Scourge to enemies of the Roman Catholic Church
where it's ZERO HOUR for for heretics and other enemies of society

Yes, let's give that guy some serious political power and find out the content of his character. :P
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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It's patently false to say there was discouragement by the Church in light of the historical record.
In another thread I asked for help in understanding how on earth one can make such a statement in light of even a short list of christian activities such as the following.

~ Banning books including those written by Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon, Galileo, Brahe, Hume, Darwin, and so on.
~ Confiscation of property, forced confessions, recantations, and imprisonment of heretics on threat or use of torture.
~ Denounced heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture".
~ Burning heretics alive.

The only "help" I got was (1) Ant admitting he didn't know Trasancos is the author of the book being peddled in that and other threads and (2) starhwe looking at the above list and basically saying "Meh, no harm done."
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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apparently the Catholics had a thing called The Index Librorum Prohibitorum (English: List of Prohibited Books)
The aim of the list was to protect the faith and morals of the faithful by preventing the reading of heretical and immoral books. Books thought to contain such errors included some scientific works by leading astronomers such as Johannes Kepler's Epitome astronomiae Copernicianae, which was on the Index from 1621 to 1835, and leading philosophers like Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The various editions of the Index also contained the rules of the Church relating to the reading, selling and pre-emptive censorship of books—editions and translations of the Bible that hadn't been approved by the Church could be banned.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Libr ... ohibitorum

here are some of the works listed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_au ... rks_listed

but they of all people should have known "you can't keep a good book down" :-D
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Re: The Scientific Method Originated by Catholics during Middle Ages

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The Scientific Method used by Aristotle was not valid by our standards. He used induction not experimentation so I stand by my post.


My response to the book banning question was NOT, "No harm done." If you are going to characterize my responses confine yourself to the thread where my comment was made so your accuracy can be investigated.
n=Infinity
Sum n = -1/12
n=1

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