How did discoveries in science lead to a new way of thinking for Europeans?
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Discoveries in science led to a new way of thinking for Europeans because they called into question various ideas that had been taken on the authority of the Bible or the authority of classical thinkers like Aristotle.
As the Scientific Revolution was getting started, people like Copernicus and Kepler started to discover that the geocentric model of the universe was wrong. Kepler, in particular, used observations (rather then theorizing) to confirm a heliocentric model of the universe. Similarly, William Harvey used experiments and observation to prove that the heart was the beginning of the circulatory system. This disproved classical ideas which said the liver played this role.
These sorts of things led to a whole new way of thinking in which hypothesis and experiment and observation (as opposed to relying on past authorities) were the path to knowledge.
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