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It was during the 16th and 17th centuries when man's view of the unvierse and himself changed drastically. This came after a millenium of repetition and stagnation in the development of science. People finally began questioning what they were told, and they went out to find proof rather than assuming on the basis of authority and common sense. These advances in astronomy and medicine came about in the same era, and were not unparallel in their development. In both fields were some very notable people who contributed greatly to the devolopment in these areas. In the field of astronomy Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo shed Aristotle's, Plato's, and Ptolemy's views of the universe. In medicine Paraclesus, Vesalius, and Harvey did away with Galen's ancient practices. Ancient Greeks believed that the Earth was stationary, they concluded this by making some basic obsevations. One being that the Earth cannot be part of the 'heavens' because celestial bodies are bright points of light, whereas the Earth is a nonluminous sphere of mud and rock. Also in the heavens there is very little change, the same stars are there night after night, only five planets, the sun, and the moon. On Earth however things are constantly changing and reforming. Their senses also told them that the Earth wasn't moving. They believed that the air, the clouds, and the birds would all be left behind if the Earth spinning around, therefore it couldn't be moving.
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