This spirit of tolerance and open-mindedness to new theories, facts, and methods, and the desire to combine as many minds as possible in the pursuit of scientific advancement, led to the extensive publishing and communication of all of Europe's scientific societies. Many scientific historians complain that due to the scientific journals in which papers were often published anonymously. it is difficult to discern which advances are attributable to which scientists. However, though these articles were undoubtedly each written by one particular scientist, more often than not the experimental results and theories compiled within the articles were the product of much collaboration, both within a particular society and from the members of distant societies who had offered their advice and findings to the article's author. It was this widespread communication between scientists of different regions and different fields which enabled the linkage of the advances within separate fields into integrated theories to solve complicated problems.

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