Renaissance
Science and art were very much intermingled in the early Renaissance, with artists such as Leonardo da vinci making observational drawings of anatomy and nature. Yet the most significant development of the era was not a specific discovery, but rather a process for discovery, the scientific method. This revolutionary new way of learning about the world focused on empirical evidence, the importance of mathematics, and discarding the Aristotelian "final cause" in favor of a mechanical philosophy. Early and influential proponents of these ideas included Copernicus and Galileo.The new scientific method led to great contributions in the fields of astronomy, physics, Biology, and anatomy. With the publication of Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica, a new confidence was placed in the role of dissection, observation, and a mechanistic view of anatomy.
Post-Renaissance
By the mid-1700s Science was beginning to get more sophisticated. French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was most influential in developing an experimental approach, laid the foundation of modern chemistry. In 1789, Lavoisier published a list of pure substances. By the early 1800s, John Dalton's atomic theory and the concept of atomic weights developed. In 1829 Johann Döbereiner noted that there were triplets of elements in which the central species' properties were almost exactly midway between the outer two. In 1860 Stanislao Cannizzaro presented analyses at an international chemistry meeting that, when merged with previously ridiculed hypotheses by fellow Italian Amedeo Avogadro, yielded unambiguous atomic weights.
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