The paradigms of scientific though have shifted numerous times throughout history, each one ushering mankind into a new era of invention and growth. It is inevitable therefore that with this emergence of new scientific principles, that major changes to society will come as result.
In order to better understand how influential a shift in paradigm is, it would be prudent to discuss the origins of the modern scientific institution as we know it today. The deepest roots of science are found in a school of thought called scholasticism, which dates back to roughly 1100 A.D. Based around principles of intense scrutiny and rigid logic, scholasticism was a study that sought to reconcile differences between ideologies. The common technique involved students writing detailed maps of each argument, and then either reconciling the conflictions through changes in definitions or interpretation. Scholasticism developed through the monastic tradition, as during the time monasteries were the only centers of learning.
In a time period in worldview was strictly based upon religious pretexts, the scholastic tradition sought to reconcile the seeming contradictions between church teaching and other schools of thought, namely old Greek leanings and Islamic technological innovations. As such, scholasticism served a vital role in not only the social structure of the era but also in the furthering of human knowledge.
Out of scholasticism, the next major paradigm of scientific history is that of Natural Philosophy. As the monastic tradition continued to evolve, and as formal universities and libraries began to take shape, science had again had undergone a fundamental shift in perspective. This new ideology saw the world as a great clock, moving in predictable ways and patterns. This varies quite a bit from earlier ideologies that the world was run according to the Will of God, and that man was below understanding it. However, just as science's roots come from the need to reconcile spirituality with physical observations, so too did Natural Philosophy have a religious context. Natural Philosophy was seen not as a polar opposite of religion, but rather an augmentation. Not until later on in history, during the Age of Enlightenment, was science as we know it today firmly established.
During the 18th and 19th century, as countries underwent revolutions and rebellions, the scientific worldview was not spared in being completely rebuilt. In this era, as newer government structures were prevailing over old religious precedents (which had been the dominating force in politics for centuries) so too did the scientific perspective cast off any affiliation with spiritual matters.
Science as it is now commonly seen, with little to no association with religion - is a result of this drama. However, the term "modern science" is deceptively named, as we are in the mist of another major shift of paradigm.
The New Science, based upon the integration of cognizance and reality, is one that returns science to its deeper roots. Once again, science will take on deep, personal meaning to many of those who study it. To a world that has been gutted of any sense of subjectivity, conditioned to believe that their own cognizant faculty is only the result of a "user-illusion," the New Science comes as a breath of fresh air.
If the world and the way we view it are found to be intertwined, than the New Science will be as much a study into the correct manner to act as it is a study into the correct technologies to create. The New Science will be the school with which man tames not only his environment, but himself. It is through the study of the New Science, with the help of reason and the guide of morality, that man will escape to the stars and colonize worlds he never thought attainable.
