Sample Solution

Printed texts helped change how Europeans communicated with each other; the way in which visual images and words were used were advanced, and as Elizabeth L.Eisentein discusses in her article, In the Wake of the Printing Press, the developments of the printing press “made it possible to bypass the confusion engendered by linguistic multiformity, by translation problems, and by diverse names for constellations, landmasses, flora, or fauna”.In essence, the printing press was not only accountable for the mass establishment and spread of knowledge, but also united already known scientific studies and specimens.

Of course, books and other forms of printed texts were not always looked upon so positively, especially at a time of strong religious beliefs and various theories. The conflict between the heliocentric and geocentric theories acted as ‘fuel to the fire’ of the scientific revolution. The church followed the geocentric theory heavily; which suggested that Earth is at the centre of the universe and other planets and the sun revolve around it. Later, in 1543, Copernicus published a book which suggested the Heliocentric model, going against the scripture of church. Consequently (despite having strong advocates for the theory such as Galileo Galilei) the works of Copernicus were forbidden by the Roman Inquisition. This essentially highlights the role that the printing press had on the scientific revolution; knowledge was now much more accessible and this become a crucial aspect of the shift of society from Medieval to early modern, and Pierce Butler suggests this in his own works; “down to the fifteenth century all European books were pen written and that ever since that time most of them have been printed. We know likewise that is the same fifteenth century Western culture laid off its medieval characteristics and became distinctively modern”. It is no coincidence that the breakup of Europe’s religious unity corresponded with the spread of printed text; there was a direct impact which shifted a focus onto more scientific ideologies rather than religious ones.

On the other hand, there are arguments present that the printing press did not have a role that as significant as may been seen. There were many cases of exploitation of the print being seen; “exploitation of the mass medium was more common among pseudoscientists and quacks than among Latin-writing professional scientists, who often withheld their work from the press”. Essentially, wh