Thanks for posting the link, lox.

My comments were not meant to be an exhaustive thesis on the origin(s) of the Renaissance, I was trying to point out one of the more important of a number of factors that brought it about.

". . . to imply that all priests were against progress is wrong."

I wasn't trying to imply that. I'm aware that many of those who were involved it kick-starting the Renaissance were clergy who, more often than not, were the only literate folks around. In the main, about the only way a young man could get an education in those days was to join a monastery.

Nor do I mean to say that, as important as Aristotle was in the process (through the roughly one-quarter of his writings that survived the intervening centuries), he was most definitely not right about everything. His ideas of astronomy were as off-base as just about everyone else's at the time.

But "Observe carefully" and "think systematically," then "observe again, . . ."

A few good ideas go a long way.

By the way, Aristarchus was another Greek who was beginning to get a grasp on things. He even came up with pretty definitive proof that the earth was round, and by measuring shadows at noon on two different summer soltsices many miles apart and applying a bit of primitive trigonometry, he got a pretty close estimate of the circumferance of the earth.

Pretty cool for a guy running around in sandals and a bed sheet!

Don Firth