The 400th Anniversary of Francis Bacon Publishing Novum Organum

& the value of science (of knowledge) becoming controversial

An instrument—or method—for acquiring knowledge: this is the modern meaning we give to the word organon.   It is taken from the Greek, and the principles of logic described in his book Organon by the Greek philosopher Aristotle were hugely influential, as were all his views, throughout the Western and Near Eastern Worlds for more than 1900 years, right up into the Renaissance.

The publication in 1620 of Novum Organum introduced what is sometimes referred to as the Baconian method, a radical new alternative to Aristotelian approaches to science.   Often called the father of empiricism, the father of experimental philosophy, or quite simply and bluntly the father of the scientific method, the English philosopher Francis Bacon described techniques in this book centered on experimental research.   This monumentally influential work ushered in and propelled the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, as well as the Industrial Age.   The means of observation and induction presented in the book came to form the basis of what is now called the scientific method.

In Rome just three years later in 1623, the brilliant Italian astronomer, physicist, and mathematician, Galileo Galilei, published Il Saggiatore (The Assayer).   Also thought of as a pioneering work in the development of the scientific method, in it Galileo first introduces the idea that nature is to be studied with mathematical tools rather than the traditional methodology of simply using philosophical argumentation, which was common at the time.

Bacon died in 1626.   A Dutch printing 25 years after the first publication of Novum Organum indicates how it was already recognized as a foundational scientific work.

By the early 1630s, Galileo had run afoul of the Inquisition—these were the thought police, whom the Roman Catholic church used to keep the people in line.   His scientific writings and thoughts had violated their rules.   The Catholic church had come to worship the writings and ideas of Aristotle as if he had been a religious leader.   Galileo’s studies of astronomy had convinced him that it was possible, even likely, that the earth revolved around the sun instead of that the sun went around the earth as the church taught and as Aristotle had taught back thousands of years earlier.

In Galileo’s day, it was common for the Catholic church to gruesomely torture and slowly murder people in big public spectacles.   They felt that they had to especially torture scientists to death in front of huge crowds, because the ideas of the scientists made so much sense that people would likely start to believe their scientific ideas instead of being kept in constant terror by the church.

Galileo was a very famous and prominent scientist, so it was extremely important to them that he be kept quiet about his scientific views that they felt so threatened by.   The Inquisition arrested him and put him on trial for publishing his ideas about his discoveries.   They explained to him clearly that they had studied the same astronomical principles and that they knew that he was correct about the earth revolving around the sun.   They explained that their power over the ordinary people was based on telling lies about science in order to keep control of the masses of people and that this was the reason why it was so important for him to stop letting people know the truth about science.

In his trial, they showed him the grisly torture instruments that they were going to use on him if he continued to make his scientific ideas known to the public.   They convicted him of the crime of telling the truth about science, and they kept him under arrest for the rest of his life.

The Scientific Revolution continued though, and because the Protestant countries were more tolerant of scientific ideas being made public, the technologies and inventions and industries in those countries began to advance more quickly than in the Catholic countries.   Over time, the Catholic countries became more of a backwards, impoverished backwater compared with the developing Protestant countries.

Throughout history, in those places where the public has been allowed to share in greater scientific knowledge, the standard of living has tended to rise.   But has our culture abandoned that objective?

Now in an era when “alternate facts”—that is to say, lies—are promulgated as being just as valid as true scientific inquiry—when a controversy about the efficacy of science itself seems to actually be reasserting itself—we may ask what the prospects for maintaining a higher standard of living for ourselves are, or in particular in these days of economic standstill, what our chances of being able to start again to build up our civilization and of attaining a higher standard might be.

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