Aristotle Essays (859 words) - Natural Philosophers, Free Essays

Aristotle Essays (859 words) - Natural Philosophers, Free Essays Aristotle Aristotle, Galileo, and Pasteur can be said to have contributed significantly, each in his own way, to the development of The Scientific Method. Discuss. What is the scientific method? In general, this method has three parts, which we might call (1) gathering evidence, (2) making a hypothesis, and (3) testing the hypothesis. As scientific methodology is practiced, all three parts are used together at all stages, and therefore no theory, however rigorously tested, is ever final, but remains at all times tentative, subject to new observation and continued testing by such observation. Hellenic science was built upon the foundations laid by Thales and Pythagoras. It reached its zenith in the works of Aristotle and Archimedes. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) represents the first tradition, that of qualitative forms and teleology. He was, himself, a biologist whose observations of marine organisms were unsurpassed until the 19th century. Biology is essentially teleologicalthe parts of a living organism are understood in terms of what they do in and for the organismand Aristotle's biological works provided the framework for the science until the time of Charles Darwin. Aristotle was able to make a great deal of sense of observed nature by asking of any object or process: what is the material involved, what is its form and how did it get that form, and, most important of all, what is its purpose? What should be noted is that, for Aristotle, all activity that occurred spontaneously was natural. Hence, the proper means of investigation was observation. Experiment, that is, alte ring natural conditions in order to throw light on the hidden properties and activities of objects, was unnatural and could not, therefore, be expected to reveal the essence of things. However, the establishment of the importance of classifying knowledge and of observation as well as the introduction of the deductive method of reasoning can be taken as Aristotles most significant contributions to the scientific method. Even after the intellectual revolutions of centuries to follow, Aristotelian concepts and ideas remained embedded in Western thinking. The critical tradition of science began with Copernicus in the sixteenth century. It eventually led to the work of Galileo (1564-1642), which criticised the very roots of the Aristotelian world system. With the invention of the telescope Galileo, in quick succession, announced that there were mountains on the Moon, satellites circling Jupiter, and spots upon the Sun. Moreover, the Milky Way was composed of countless stars whose existence no one had suspected until Galileo saw them. Galileo attacked the problems of the Earth's rotation and its revolution by logical analysis. Bodies do not fly off the Earth because they are not really revolving rapidly, even though their speed is high. In revolutions per minute, any body on the Earth is going very slowly and, therefore, has little tendency to fly off. Bodies fall to the base of towers from which they are dropped because they share with the tower the rotation of the Earth. Hence, bodies already in motion preserve that motion when another motion is added. So, Galileo deduced, a ball dropped from the top of a mast of a moving ship would fall at the base of the mast. If the ball were allowed to move on a frictionless horizontal plane, it would continue to move forever. Hence, Galileo concluded, the planets, once set in circular motion, continue to move in circles forever. Therefore, Copernican orbits exist. Galileo never acknowledged Kepler's ellipses; to do so would have meant abandoning his solution to the Copernic an problem. Galileo's originality as a scientist lay in his method of inquiry. First he reduced problems to a simple set of terms on the basis of everyday experience and common-sense logic. Then he analyzed and resolved them according to simple mathematical descriptions. The success with which he applied this technique to the analysis of motion opened the way for modern mathematical and experimental physics. Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist. His discovery that most infectious diseases are caused by germs, known as the germ theory of disease, is one of the most important in medical history. Pasteur's phenomenal contributions to microbiology and medicine can be summarized as follows. First, he championed changes in hospital practices to minimize the spread of disease

Why is it Important to Write Essays

Why is it Important to Write Essays Writing essays is like studying your soul. Have you ever wondered why do teachers and professors give you this bunch of written assignments? Why can’t they ask you all that in an oral form? The answer is quite simple. When you write an essay – you learn to express yourself in a more logical way, and also you develop your writing skills, your vocabulary and your own writing style. And all that is not an oral activity. By writing simple essays you can grow to be a very talented and creative writer or speaker, or logical thinker or whatever. Writing develops you in many ways. If we look further in your education we will see, that except essays – there’s a lot of written assignments, which later on will need to be written. A short list of examples is: Term papers, research papers, course works, home works, dissertations, thesis papers etc. All these activities require outstanding writing skills, which can be developed only by writing essays, and practicing. Another important aspect of writing essays – is referencing and citation. Do you know what is APA and MLA citation/referencing? If not – than you haven’t written 1 essay in your whole life. APA (American Psychological association) and MLA (Modern language association) are 2 guidebooks, which will help you put citation and referencing in your essay. Plagiarism is a very serious academic offense, and if you do not cite all the used sources properly – you will be accused of plagiarism which can harm and damage your reputation. Citation and referencing plays a very big role in your custom essay. You will have to learn to cite all the sources properly. They will definitely be useful for you in future, as in every written assignment you are supposed to use a certain style of referencing and citation. It can be either MLA or APA, Harvard, Chicago, Turabian etc. When you write an essay – you develop your logical thinking in a written form. After you have developed your own style of writing – you certainly have developed a certain style of thinking and talking. In this particular way – essay writing helps you.