What intellectual and social changes occurred as a result of the Scientific Revolution?

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Metamorphoses of the Caterpillar and MothMaria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), the stepdaughter of a Dutch painter, became a celebrated scientific illustrator in her own right. Her finely observed pictures of insects in the South American colony of Suriname introduced many new species. For Merian, science was intimately tied with art: she not only painted but also bred caterpillars and performed experiments on them. Her two-year stay in Suriname, accompanied by a teenage daughter, was a daring feat for a seventeenth-century woman. (akg-images)

TTHE CREATION OF A NEW SCIENCE was not accomplished by a handful of brilliant astronomers working alone. Scholars in many fields — medicine, chemistry, and botany, among others — used new methods to seek answers to long-standing problems, sharing their results in a community that spanned Europe. At the same time, monarchs and entrepreneurs launched explorations to uncover and understand the natural riches of newly conquered empires around the globe.