ABSTRACT
We take it for granted that the natural sciences use mathematics to understand a wide range of phenomena. The mathematics employed by scientists is often used to express the laws of nature in the form of equations – it seems obvious to us not only that there are laws of nature but also that it is a task of science to discover them. We think that many scientific disciplines are focused on discovering, modeling, and studying the fundamental forces of nature. And certainly, we think it obvious that scientists should use experiments and observation to study all aspects of nature. We might even say that the following is constitutive of natural science as we know it: nature can be understood using mathematics, experiments, and observation; it has laws governing it; and there are basic forces operating in it. 1 This notion of science’s project was shaped by a series of profound developments during what is often called the “scientific revolution,” a period of tremendous intellectual ferment that began sometime before the seventeenth century and ended sometime after its close. But each of these three aspects of the scientific project was hotly contested throughout the era of the scientific revolution. Anyone who sought to understand nature in 1600, or 1650, or even 1700, could not take these matters for granted.
