Zilsel Thesis
The Zilsel thesis in the history and philosophy of science proposes an explanation for why modern science emerged in the early 17th century in Western Europe and not in other places or eras. The thesis Edgar Zilsel claims that science only emerged when capitalism emerged in Western society because "The whole process was imbedded in the advance of early capitalistic society, which weakened collective-mindedness, magical thinking, and belief in authority and which furthered causal rational and quantitative thinking." (Zilsel 2003, 7) This created an environment in which two previously separated social groups could come into contact. These were the academically trained rational thinkers who were always members of the upper classes and what Zilsel calls "superior craftsmen". The academics possessed methodical intellectual training but not practical skills while the craftsmen were skilled in experimentation and causal research but lacked the methodical rational approach acquired from study of the classics. Zilsel supports his argument with a case study of William Gilbert who, in 1600 and five years before Francis Bacon's The Advancement of Learning, published the first printed book (on magnetism) written by an academically trained scholar based almost entirely on actual observation and experiment. Gilbert rejected authority when it differed