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In the study of the history of science and technology, another important area of interest
involves the various intellectual revolutions across time. In this area, interest lies in how
intellectual revolutions emerged as a result of the interaction of science and technology and of
society. It covers how intellectual revolutions altered the way modern science was understood
and approached.

For this discussion, intellectual revolutions should not be confused with the Greek’s pre-
Socratic speculations about the behavior of the universe. In science and technology, intellectual
revolutions refer to the series of events that led to the emergence of modern science and the
progress of scientific thinking across critical periods in history. Although there are many
intellectual revolutions, this section focuses three of the most important ones that altered the
way humans view science and its impact on society: the Copernican, Darwinian, and Freudian
revolutions. In the words of French astronomer, mathematician, and freemason, Jean Sylvain
Bailley (1976in Cohen, 1976), these scientific revolutions involved a two-stage process of
sweeping away the old and establishing the new.

In understanding intellectual revolutions, it is worth noting that these revolutions are, in

themselves, paradigm shifts. These shifts resulted from a renewed and enlightened
understanding of how the universe behaves and functions. They challenged long-held views
about the nature of the universe. Thus, these revolutions were often met with huge resistance
and controversy.

Copernican Revolution

Figure 22: Nicolaus Copernicus and his heliocentric model

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The Copernican Revolution refers to the 16 th-century paradigm shift named after the
Polish mathematician and astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus formulated the
heliocentric model of the universe. At the time, the belief was that the Earth was the center of
the Solar System based on the geocentric model of Ptolemy (i.e., Ptolemaic model).

Copernicus introduced the heliocentric model in a 40 pages outline entitled

Commentariolus. He formalized his model in the publication of his treatise, De Revolutionibus
Orbium Coelestium (The Revolution of Celestial Spheres) in 1543. In his model, Copernicus
repositioned the Earth from the center of the Solar System and introduced the idea that the
Earth rotates on its own axis. The model illustrated the Earth, along with other heavenly bodies,
to be rotating around the Sun.
The idea that the Sun is the center of the universe instead of the Earth proved to be
unsettling to many when Copernicus first introduced his model. In fact, the heliocentric model
was met with huge resistance, primarily from the Church, accusing Copernicus of heresy. At the
time, the idea that it was not the Earth, and, by extension, not man, that was the center of all
creation was unthinkable. Copernicus faced persecution from the Church because of this.

Moreover, although far more sensible than the Ptolemaic model, which as early as the
13th century had been criticized for its shortcomings, the Copernican model also had multiple
inadequacies that later filled in by astronomers who participated in the revolution. Nonetheless,
despite problems with the model and the persecution of the Church, the heliocentric model was
soon accepted by other scientists of the time, most profoundly by Galileo Galilei.

The contribution of the Copernican Revolution is far-reaching. It served as a catalyst to

sway scientific thinking away from age-long views about the position of the Earth relative to an
enlightened understanding of the universe. This marked the beginning of modern astronomy.
Although very slowly, the heliocentric model eventually caught on among other astronomers
who further refined the model and contributed to the recognition of heliocentrism. This was
capped off by Isaac Newton’s work a century later. Thus, the Copernican Revolution marked a
turning point in the study of cosmology and astronomy making it a truly important intellectual
revolution.

Darwinian Revolution
The English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, Charles Darwin, is credited for stirring
another important intellectual revolution in the mid-19 th century. His treatise on the science of
revolution, On the Origin of Species, was published in 1859 and began a revolution that brought
humanity to a new era of intellectual discovery.

The Darwinian Revolution benefitted from earlier intellectual revolutions especially

those in the 16th and 17th centuries, such that it was guided by conference in human reason’s
ability to explain phenomena in the universe. For his part, Darwin gathered evidence pointing to
what is now known as natural selection, an evolutionary process by which organisms,
including humans, inherit, develop, and adapt traits that favored survival and reproduction.
These traits are manifested in offspring that are more fit and well-suited to the challenges of
survival and reproduction.

Figure 23: The beak of an ancestral species of Finches

found in the Galapagos had evolved to be able to
survive in acquiring different food sources.
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Darwin’s theory of evolution was, of course, met with resistance and considered to be
controversial. Critics accused the theory of being either short in accounting for the broad and
complex evolutionary process or dismissive of the idea that the functional design of organisms
was a manifestation of an omniscient God. The Darwinian Revolution can be likened to the
Copernican Revolution in its demonstration of the power of the laws nature in explaining
biological phenomena of survival and reproduction.

The place of the Darwinian Revolution in modern science cannot be underestimated.

Through the Darwinian Revolution, the development of organisms and the origin of unique
forms of life and humanity could be rationalized by a lawful system or any orderly process of
change underpinned by laws of nature.

Freudian Revolution

Australian neurologist, Sigmund Freud, is credited for stirring a 20 th-century

intellectual revolution named after him, the Freudian Revolution. Psychoanalysis as a school of
thought in psychology is at the center of this revolution. Freud developed psychoanalysis---a
scientific method of understanding inner and unconscious conflicts embedded within one’s
personality, springing from free associations, dreams, and fantasies of the individual.
Psychoanalysis immediately shot into controversy for it emphasized the existence of the
unconscious where feelings, thoughts, argues, emotions, and memories are contained outside of
one’s consciousness mind. Psychoanalytic concepts of psychosexual development, libido, and
ego were met with both support and resistance from many scholars. Freud suggested that
humans are inherently pleasure-seeking individuals. These notions were particularly caught in
the crossfire of whether Freud’s psychoanalysis fit in the scientific study of the brain and mind.

Scientists working on a biological approach in studying human behavior criticized

psychoanalysis for lack of vitality and bordering on being unscientific as a theory. Particularly,
the notion that all humans are destined to exhibit Oedipus and Electra complexes (i.e., sexual
desire towards the parent of the opposite sex and exclusion of the parent of the same sex) did
not seem to be supported by empirical data. In the same vein, it appeared to critics that
psychoanalysis, then, was more of an ideological stance than a scientific one.

Amidst controversy, Freud’s psychoanalysis is widely credited for dominating

psychotherapeutic practice in the early 20th century. Psychodynamic therapies that treat a
myriad of psychological disorders still remain largely informed by Freud’s work on
psychoanalysis.