Comment by griffzhowl

2 days ago

They were all educated at universities though.

Yes, but the point is that universities weren't places of research, but learning/teaching.

  • It could be that interest in research itself is a relatively recent development. A lot of scholarship amounted to study of past scholarship, until science came along. Empirical science as we know it was barely a century old when Newton came along.

  • The article doesn't say much about the role of religion in this matter. Surely what one could study was limited by what was allowed by the church.