75. On Science, Heresy and Political Stability.

Dearly Beloved,

One of those questions which follow me around like a faithful dog is “Why did the industrial revolution happen in the UK rather than in Italy?” After all, up to 1600 Italy was a collection of rich, highly cultured city states and the seat of the Renaissance. 

The answer may have been that apart from in the medical field, the religious persecution of scientists such as Galileo and Giordano Bruno effectively shut down science in Italy and so the technology dependent on basic science was slow to developed there. Both these scientists conceived of cosmologies unacceptable to the Church. Subsequently, both were found guilty of heresy. Galileo died under house arrest but the unfortunate Bruno was burnt at the stake in Florence in 1600. In the UK on the other hand, the tradition of tolerance initiated by Richard Hooker the theologian and ecclesiologist of the Church of England and promoted by Queen Elizabeth 1st, may have percolated through to later centuries and allowed scientists to have theologically unacceptable ideas without being persecuted.

My daughter recently gave me a book by Michael Strevens entitled The Knowledge Machine which is about the philosophy of science and why science is so successful in telling us how the world works and how we can manipulate it to our advantage.

Great Britain got off to a good start with the exposition of how to achieve independent and unbiased scientific thought by Francis Bacon (1561 to 1626). Strevens's book reveals a telling example of tolerance towards Isaac Newton who was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in Cambridge. He had accepted a fellowship from Trinity College, only a stone's throw from St Clement's. Consequently he was obliged to take holy orders within seven years. However he had an heretical view of the Trinity, believing that God the Son was created by, and was inferior to, God the father – the heresy known as Arianism, Anomoeanism, Eunomianism or Subordinationism. If he failed to take holy orders he would have been threatened with expulsion from the College, loss of income and loss of status.

Instead Charles II (1660 to 1685) stepped in and removed from the conditions of the Lucasian Professorship the Fellow's obligation to take Holy Orders, so conserving Newton's career and his work. He did not suffer the fate of Giordano Bruno 75 years before.

The development of science and its dependent  technology, continued apace and allowed the promotion of scientific solutions to practical problems which led to a virtuous cycle of enrichment, investment and further developments in Great Britain. Doubtless the period of political stability following the end of the chaotic Stuart era in The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was important too.  

Ideas often took quite a time to develop to become effective.  An example is the attempts to improve the seaworthiness of wooden ships by plating them in copper which inhibited the growth of weed and shellfish which slowed the boats, and ship-worm which destroyed the timbers. The idea was first conceived of in 1708 but was not fully in operation in the Royal navy until about 1778 because the copper was found to interact with the iron bolts of the ships, causing them to corrode away. Eventually in 1830 targeted scientific research led to the development of a copper/zinc alloy, with a trace of iron, called Muntz metal, named after its businessman inventor. Muntz metal did not interfere with the iron bolts. Such discoveries made the Royal Navy more effective and speeded commerce with faster ships. Today science continues to speed up our lives...

Peace, 

Paul

Completed 10 December 2021

The hull of the Cutty Sark, a fast tea clipper, swathed in Munz Metal



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