During the 16th century and even into the 17th century, scientific discoveries and new empirical ways of thinking began to emerge. This period in history is commonly referred to as the Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution challenged past authorities by questioning church teachings, philosophy, and traditional views of humanity's place in the cosmos. Before the Scientific Revolution, it was believed that the majority of truth was already known to man and simply required someone to explain and understand it. However, discoveries resulting from the rise of empiricism during the Scientific Revolution demonstrated that new truths could and were being discovered. Additionally, empiricism, inductive reasoning, and scientists slowly began to replace philosophers and deductive reasoning. Men like Francis Bacon are responsible for this change in thinking. The new wave of scientific discoveries also brought about a change in the way people viewed the natural world. People increasingly began to accept the view of the mechanism, which considered the world ...