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While it is clearly arbitrary to say that modern science began with Galileo, there is a compelling argument which can be made for the statement. Before Galileo, the natural scientist used his unaided senses and reason. Instrumentation, in this case the telescope, enormously increased the amount of information available to man and, thereby, extended and enhanced his innate abilities to understand, predict, and influence natural events. Galileo offered both his invention and his writings to the Church but they were rejected. The Church correctly recognized the danger to its authority if men could amplify their senses in this way. If man was magnified, God and the Church's authority would be diminished.
An uneasy truce punctuated by occasional skirmishes continued thereafter between natural science and the church. The philosopher and scientist who contributed significantly to a reduction in tension concerning the study of man was Descartes. He gave to natural science the body, and to the church the soul. Unfortunately, the brain and the mind had to be partitioned as a condition for this settlement. It was, nevertheless, an historic and brilliant compromise.
The principle of dualism allowed natural science to flourish in its smaller domain while philosophy concerned itself with more important problems. Increasing reliance on instrumentation and empirical methods further segregated certain of these emerging disciplines into the physical sciences. The unprecedented growth and success of the physical sciences, in an extraordinarily short