What makes the scientific revolution revolutionary?

The scientific revolution was unique in that it focused on learning through observations and looking for cause-and-effect relationships in natural phenomena.  Before this, people looked to old wives' tales, religion, or other supernatural events to describe the world around them.  The first scientists began to link mathematics with natural occurrences, and they found that much of the observable world is quite predictable.  During the scientific revolution, scientists studied ballistics through making observations and drawing diagrams of how objects flew.  They could thus form hypotheses and look for rational reasons for why an object traveled as far as it did.  Isaac Newton made observations about gravity and motion in general.  He did not discover either of these; rather, he noted that there were mathematical reasons for natural occurrences.  Doctors acquired cadavers, even though the churches had wanted to stop them from doing so, in order to study anatomy.  These direct observations were not meant to turn people away from their religious beliefs entirely, but rather to demonstrate that events in the universe do not happen by chance, but by events that can be explained.  

What made the Scientific Revolution revolutionary?

First, it should be noted that the assertion that the Scientific Revolution was in fact revolutionary has been contested by recent historians, including Steven Shapin. Shapin and other scholars argue that many of the intellectual trends that characterized the Scientific Revolution had their roots in medieval Europe. In other words, Shapin emphasizes continuity more than change. These arguments notwithstanding, it is still worthwhile to examine the development of scientific thought.

Essentially, the Scientific Revolution was also an epistemological revolution in that it emphasized methodical, empirical study of natural phenomena over searching for philosophical explanations from first principles, often based on faith. Inductive reasoning, which did in fact have its origins among some medieval thinkers, became the basis for scientific inquiry. But the Scientific Revolution fundamentally represented a change in how Europeans understood the universe and their world. Beginning with Copernicus's publication of De Revolutionibus and continuing through the work of Kepler, Galileo, and Sir Isaac Newton, to name only the most prominent thinkers, educated Europeans began to understand nature as conforming to certain natural laws which could be understood through scientific inquiry. This, along with the emergence of the scientific method of critical inquiry, was the real advance of the Scientific Revolution.

What made the Scientific Revolution revolutionary was its emphasis on the idea that the nature of reality could only be determined through empirical proof.  Prior to the Scientific Revolution, it was more common for people to accept ideas about the universe simply because they had been passed down based on authority.  If the Church said something was so, people accepted it on this basis.  With the Scientific Revolution came a new attitude.  People came to believe that things should be proven by actual observed facts.  This was a major intellectual change that served to undermine reverence for authorities of all sorts.