Before Newton: Robert Grosseteste

http://theconversation.com/medieval-bishops-theory-resembles-modern-concept-of-multiple-universes-25460

This article and the links - which are worth opening to explore further - describes a multi disciplinary project to study the early scientific work of a mediaeval bishop,

The project explores the conceptual world of Robert Grosseteste, one of the most dazzling minds of his generation (1170 to 1253): sometime bishop of Lincoln, church reformer, theologian, poet, politician, and one of the first to absorb, teach and debate new texts on natural phenomena that were becoming available to western scholars. These texts, principally the natural science of the greek scholar Aristotle, were translated from Arabic into Latin during the course of the 12th and 13th centuries, along with a wonderful array of material from Islamic and Jewish commentators. They revolutionised the intellectual resources of western scholars, posing challenges to established ways of thinking.

While Grosseteste may not be the originator of western experimental science, his scientific works come close to advocating experiments. They are also beautifully balanced mathematical constructions, not always apparent to a literary reading, yet wondrously so to later medieval generations.

Grosseteste’s treatise on light, called De Luce (Concerning Light), is the earliest known attempt to describe the universe using a coherent set of physical laws, centuries before Isaac Newton. It proposes that the same physics of light and matter, which explain the solidity of ordinary objects, could be applied to the cosmos as a whole.

In explaining the formation of the ancient universe, geocentric and composed of a series of nested spheres, Grosseteste conceives the universe as beginning from a single point of light, the fusion of matter and form, which expands until matter can be moved no further: the first sphere. A different form of light radiates inwards compressing matter, until it will move no further, generating the second sphere, and so on.

Grosseteste’s calculations are very consistent and precise. Had he had access to modern calculus and computing methods, he surely would have used them. In a recent paper, just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, our team built computer models to express Grosseteste’s equations. In doing so it suggests, although this was probably not apparent to Grosseteste at the time, a series of ordered universes reminiscent of the modern “multiverse” concept.

Originally posted by finnegan
http://theconversation.com/medieval-bishops-theory-resembles-modern-concept-of-multiple-universes-25460

This article and the links - which are worth opening to explore further - describes a multi disciplinary project to study the early scientific work of a mediaeval bishop,

The project explores the conceptual world of [b]Robert Grosseteste, ...[text shortened]... the time, a series of ordered universes reminiscent of the modern “multiverse” concept.

[/b]

Let me just warn you that the idea of religious people doing science is not popular with many on this forum.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Let me just warn you that the idea of religious people doing science is not popular with many on this forum.

Everyone were christians at that time. So was the scientists.

Some of the scientists who made progress were not accepted by the church and therefore were threatened or even killed, some was burned for heresy. (Bruno, Galilei as some examples). So in fact science was controlled by the church.

Remember the controversy between the geocentric or heliocentric theories. Now we know, thanks to scientists.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Everyone were christians at that time. So was the scientists.

Some of the scientists who made progress were not accepted by the church and therefore were threatened or even killed, sub was burned for heresy. (Bruno, Galilei as some examples). So in fact science was controlled by the church.

Remember the controversy between the geocentric or heliocentric theories. Now we know, thanks to scientists.

In other words, progress in science was made despite religion, not because of it. The fact that so many early scientists were theists is merely testimony to that. It was an uphill struggle for science up against religious dogma and often pretty evil religious dogma at that. Thankfully, real science has long broken free of the shackle and chains of such evil religion and religious oppression -hence the such rapid progress of modern science that wouldn't have otherwise be possible especially progress made by us non-religious people i.e. atheists ( like myself ) . Most successful scientists now in the modern age are clearly atheist/agnostic and none religious.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Everyone were christians at that time. So was the scientists.

Some of the scientists who made progress were not accepted by the church and therefore were threatened or even killed, some was burned for heresy. (Bruno, Galilei as some examples). So in fact science was controlled by the church.

Remember the controversy between the geocentric or heliocentric theories. Now we know, thanks to scientists.

Well, let us just say that it is not okay that religious people are allowed to do science today by some.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Well, let us just say that it is not okay that religious people are allowed to do science today by some.

Are we talking about science? Everyone doing science is welcome.

But those who redefine the concept and methods of science to fit their own purposes, and thus twist science to be something that definitely is not science, then it is of course wrong.

It's like playing chess and argue that the queen of hearts is higher in value than king of diamonds and therefore he win the game. Each set of rules in its own domain. Play by the book.

A friend of mine thought that astrology was real science. Why, I asked? Because they use tables with a lot of numbers in it, she said. Well, I said, that's not enough to call it science, my friend.

There are rules in science that have to be followed if you want to call it science.

Originally posted by humy
Most successful scientists now in the modern age are clearly atheist/agnostic and none religious.

Utterly false!

Edit:
I'll just disprove you last assertion with a few examples of successful scientists in the modern age (even though I don't know exactly what do you mean by modern age):

Lise Meitner
Arthur Eddington
Georges Lemaitre (who proposed the Big Bang hypothesis and was more or less ridiculed by his fellow scientists because such an hypothesis reminded them too much of God. An hypothesis that nowadays is used by scientists in order to disprove the existence if God...)
Heisenberg
Goedel (you can argue that he was more of a theist than a religious person though)


And such a list could go on...

Originally posted by adam warlock
Utterly false!

Perhaps he meant "not" rather than "none." It's obviously true that most modern scientists are not religious.

Originally posted by adam warlock
Utterly false!

that is correct 🙂 that was a contradiction! ( due to my misspelling of "not" as "none" )
You cannot have both "most" X and "none" not X; But can have "all" X and "none" not X; or, "most" X and "not" not X as like it should have been in this case.

I.e. that should have been;

"Most successful scientists now in the modern age are clearly atheist/agnostic and not religious."

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
It's obviously true that most modern scientists are not religious.

I'm not religious in any way whatsoever but even your sentence is highly suspicious to me.

Here are my qualms with it:
1 - First you need to define what do you mean with the word scientist. If like e you are a snob and think that science is restricted to Physics, Math and pretty close areas (yes I'm saying that I don't consider economics, medicine, etc. as science) than I suppose that a lot of people on those fields aren't religious. But this is just the two of us making a big snob assumption and it holds no weight whatsoever in rational discourse since we don't have (well, I don't have and I'm assuming that you don't too) any kind of sample to back those words up
2 - If you consider as science everything that usually is considered as science (even social sciences, yuck!) than my guess is that you'll find a lot more religious person a part of the whole
3 - Lastly, just like we need to be more precise with our definition of science we should also be more precise with our definition of religious. For instance was Einstein religious? Someone who believes in some kind of a god but doesn't follow any organized religion is religious?

Originally posted by humy
that is correct 🙂 that was a contradiction! ( due to my misspelling of "not" as "none" )
You cannot have both "most" X and "none" not X; But can have "all" X and "none" not X; or, "most" X and "not" not X as like it should have been in this case.

I.e. that should have been;

"Most successful scientists now in the modern age are clearly atheist/agnostic and [b]not religious."[/b]

It seems to me that the sentence "Most successful scientists now in the modern age are clearly atheist/agnostic and none religious" is of the form (dropping superfluous terms) "Most scientists are X and none of them are not X" which is a tautology and hence by definition can't be a contradiction.

In other words saying
1 - Most scientists are atheist/agnostic
2 - No scientists is religious

isn't a contradiction.

Originally posted by adam warlock
It seems to me that the sentence [b]"Most successful scientists now in the modern age are clearly atheist/agnostic and none religious" is of the form (dropping superfluous terms) "Most scientists are X and none of them are not X" which is a tautology and hence by definition can't be a contradiction.

In other words saying
1 - Most scientists are atheist/agnostic
2 - No scientists is religious

isn't a contradiction.[/b]

In this context at least, I take "Most" to imply "not quite all" and "religious" to generally imply "theist" although I am perfectly aware that there exists religions ( for example, some forms of Buddhism ) which don't involve the belief that there is a god thus it is possible to be religious without being theist although what I meant by "religious" in this context was necessarily theist.

Originally posted by adam warlock
I'm not religious in any way whatsoever but even your sentence is highly suspicious to me.

Here are my qualms with it:
1 - First you need to define what do you mean with the word scientist. If like e you are a snob and think that science is restricted to Physics, Math and pretty close areas (yes I'm saying that I don't consider economics, medicine, ...[text shortened]... meone who believes in some kind of a god but doesn't follow any organized religion is religious?

For instance was Einstein religious?

NO NO NO he was not religious -at least not in that way! He was an agnostic and when he spoke of “God”, he simply used the word to refer to “everything” or “the laws of physics” and NOT a supernatural conscious entity! He never ever said there exists a true God and in fact said:

http://atheism.about.com/od/einsteingodreligion/tp/Einstein-on-a-Personal-God.htm

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

- Albert Einstein, letter to an atheist (1954), quoted in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas & Banesh Hoffman

Originally posted by adam warlock
I'm not religious in any way whatsoever but even your sentence is highly suspicious to me.

Here are my qualms with it:
1 - First you need to define what do you mean with the word scientist. If like e you are a snob and think that science is restricted to Physics, Math and pretty close areas (yes I'm saying that I don't consider economics, medicine, ...[text shortened]... meone who believes in some kind of a god but doesn't follow any organized religion is religious?

Here is an article which addresses your points:

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

It's fairly old, but I doubt things have changed dramatically since 1998.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Here is an article which addresses your points:

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

It's fairly old, but I doubt things have changed dramatically since 1998.

Firstly, are we going to allow that a psychologist is a "real" scientist and not a "yuck" one, as implied above? This may influence the weight we place on the results of this research.

Secondly, I want to question a sentence in the reference (the final one) as follows:

"There are many very outstanding members of this academy who are very religious people, people who believe in evolution, many of them biologists." Our survey suggests otherwise.

Taking the finding that 7% of great scientists and 5.5% of biologists believe in a personal God, then I submit that this minority can nevertheless be described using the imprecise (fuzzy?) term "many." For some purposes, it is not unhelpful to remind people that Science is not inherently atheist, albeit many of us think it ought to be! My view is that Science is not setting out to be atheist, even if it often has atheism as part of its conclusion, and most science is not even interested in religion, never mind hostile to it.