What if the Scientific Revolution had gone differently?

Observation and mathematics displace inherited authority as the test of truth.

If it had gone differently: Natural philosophy stays deferential to the ancients; no method, no acceleration.

The real history on Wikipedia ↗

Later turning points that leaned on the Scientific Revolution. Change it in the game and the ripples reach all of these.

1. 1660The Royal Society. Without it, Science stays a private correspondence between gentlemen; results spread slowly and die with their authors.
2. 1687Newton's Principia. Without it, There is no unified mathematical physics; the study of motion stays a bag of rules of thumb for another century.
3. 1712The practical steam engine. Without it, Power stays tied to water, wind and muscle; factories cluster on rivers and stay small.
4. 1720The Enlightenment. Without it, Absolutism keeps its intellectual cover; 'rights of man' never enters common speech.
5. 1859On the Origin of Species. Without it, Life stays something designed rather than evolved; biology and half of modern thought lose their organising principle.
6. 1865Germ theory of disease. Without it, Doctors keep blaming bad air; surgery stays a death sentence and cities stay killing grounds.
7. 1865Maxwell's equations. Without it, The link between electricity, magnetism and light is never made; radio, radar and the electromagnetic century are delayed.
8. 1869The periodic table. Without it, Chemistry stays a catalogue of unrelated substances; the logic of the atom is worked out much later.
9. 1882Electric power grids. Without it, Factories stay chained to their own steam plants; there is no clean power in the home and no electronics to come.
10. 1905Einstein's relativity. Without it, Physics keeps Newton's absolute space and time; the road to nuclear energy, GPS and modern cosmology is blocked.