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Wrong scientific beliefs that were held for long periods
- rubyrescue 16y agoI don't know how "force of gravity" is a wrong belief but "the only force you are actually feeling is the upward force exerted by your own muscles in order to keep your arm accelerating continuously away from a straight path in spacetime." is correct. can anyone explain? EDIT: my mind is totally blown by this; it put together some pieces of general relativity in a new way for me today. thanks HN!
- vibragiel 16y agoHe is saying this because, in general relativity, gravitation is no longer explained as a force between two masses, but as their "warping" of their surrounding space(time). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation#General_relativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation#General_relativity
- a-priori 16y agoThis is true, but it doesn't invalidate the description of gravity as being an attractive force between masses. The warping of spacetime is just an explanation of what's happening to create that force.
- vibragiel 16y agoThere are no forces involved in Einstein's gravitation. You can see it as a pseudo-force (like Coriolis or centripetal) if you like, for practical (and mental sanity) reasons. But it's not a true force. See "equivalence principle". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle
- icegreentea 16y agoWhat happens if we ever detect a graviton? I never really understood this part. General relativity gives us one explanation of gravity (mass curves space-time), while quantum theory tells us that gravity arises from the exchange of particles. So... how do we reconcile? I imagine if we ever discover a unified theory, it'll manage to deal with that. But how does say string theory (for lack of other examples) reconcile these two views? ...or is it something as simple as the exchange of particles causes the warping of space >.>
- kscaldef 16y ago> quantum theory tells us that gravity arises from the exchange of particles No, it doesn't. That statement is wrong on two levels: 1) We don't have a confirmed quantum theory of gravity 2) In quantum field theories in general it's not really accurate to say that "[forces] arise from the exchange of particles". In some QFTs, in some situations, you can perform a perturbative expansion which maps onto the Feynman diagram view of particle exchange, but that's not universally possible. They really are quantum _field_ theories, not quantum particle theories.
- jessriedel 16y agovibragiel is basically right, but I'll just comment here that if you think hard about what you are arguing, it is semantics. A physicist will define a force as an object's deviation from a geodesic (straight line motion in the relevant geometry). In this case, gravity is not a force as objects attracted by gravity are indeed following geodesics. On the other hand, if you define a force as an object's deviation caused by a second object from the path that would be taken were the second object not there, then gravity is indeed still a force. In this case, the second object is changing the geometry itself and, hence, the associate geodesic.
- a-priori 16y agoIt is semantics, and all comes down to what's a 'force' and what isn't in theoretical physics. I was arguing from the second definition. The first definition is tautological: First, you define a curved space, accounting for gravitational forces such that a small object will follow a certain geodesic. Then, you say that since it does indeed follow said geodesic in that geometry without deviation, gravity is not a force. Well of course not! With the same same hand-wavy argument, you could define the curvature of space based on electromagnetic field strength, for example, and argue that electromagnetism is not a force.
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- jessriedel 16y ago> The first definition is tautological >With the same same hand-wavy argument, you could define the curvature of space based on electromagnetic field strength, for example, and argue that electromagnetism is not a force. No. You're very wrong here. You (irritatingly) seem to think that because you have only been exposed to popularized hand-wavy arguments, that physicists necessarily rely on them. The vast majority of possible forces (including Newtonian gravity and electromagnetism) can not be explained the way gravity is explained. Your confusion probably comes from not understanding how much smaller the space of possible geometries is than the space of possible forces. In fact, the stunningly beautiful thing about gravity is that it can be derived from knowing only that it is a geometric effect and obeys a few symmetries. Even if you relax some of these symmetries (e.g. Brans-Dicke theory) the resulting parameterizable space of possible geometries is very restricted.
- kscaldef 16y agoIt's the same way that there's not really such a thing as centrifugal force. It a fictitious force that you perceive as a result of being in an accelerating frame of reference.
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- pbhjpbhj 16y agoI'm never in an accelerating frame of reference. When I walk I push the earth around, and drag the universe along with it a little.
- michael_nielsen 16y agoThe "force" of gravity is not a fundamental concept in general relativity. Here's a way of thinking about what's going on. Consider a large mass, like the Earth. That mass curves spacetime in the vicinity of the Earth. A small object, like a satellite, simply moves completely freely in a "straight line" (i.e., geodesic path) according to that curved geometry. The curved geometry is such that those geodesics are just the satellite orbits that we see. In other words, the satellite isn't affected by any "force", it's just moving in a straight line in a geometry that happens to be curved, so we see it doing circles around the Earth. It's exceedingly neat: in John Wheeler's great phrase, matter tells spacetime how to curve, and spacetime tells matter how to move. No forces required! Of course, after the fact you can tack on a notion of "force", but it's in no way fundamental. Same thing is going on with projectile motion here on Earth. Once you internalize this point of view, the statement about holding your arm in place becomes a lot clearer. The "natural" force-free thing your arm wants to do is to move along geodesics of spacetime, which means falling toward the Earth at an acceleration of g. But if we exert a (muscular) force to keep it up, then we can hold it in place. In short, in this point of view, forces are things which cause deviations from geodesic motion.
- zach 16y agoAs far as simple visual illustrations go, this is the best I've seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-p8yZYxNGc#t=6m31 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-p8yZYxNGc#t=6m31
- natep 16y agoWhat's always bothered me about these kinds of animations is that there is a grid of straight lines, but none of the objects actually follow these grid lines. Instead, the geodesics they follow are determined by the topology of the deformed surface, invoking the viewer's intuitive understanding of gravity...in order to understand the unintuitive formulation of it. But, as you say, I haven't seen better.
- iwr 16y agoWhile the notion is simple, the math is not.
- henrikschroder 16y agoIf you are standing on the ground, the only actual force is the normal force of the ground acting on your feet to stop you from falling into the center of the Earth. However, it feels like you are pushing down on the Earth, but that's technically a pseudo-force. Another way of looking at it is to imagine that you are standing in an elevator in space that is accelerating with the speed of 1g. That scenario will feel exactly the same as if that elevator was standing still on the surface of the Earth, but it's more clear that the elevator is pushing you, and not the other way around.
- brockf 16y agoFrom the article: "I know a union that got a substantial pay raise because a politician did not understand that adding and then subtracting 20% gets you to another result from the one you started." Wouldn't this be a pay decrease? x * 1.2 = y y * 0.8 < x
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- dkersten 16y agoTrue. 20% of y is larger than 20% of x (which is what was added to x to obtain y) because y is a larger number. Therefore subtracting 20% of y from y will give you some value smaller than x. Eg: 100 + 20% = 120; 120 - 20% = 96. Not that anyone here needs an explanation :)
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- drbaskin 16y agoI don't whether the error you introduced is intentional or not, but 120 * 0.8 = 96, not 106. Another way of thinking about this is that 1.2 * 0.8 = 0.96, so it is a four percent pay cut. (This is true for any situation like this and can be remembered by the difference of two squares formula from your early algebra class -- (1 + r)(1-r) = 1 - r^2, where r is the fraction raise/pay cut.)
- nano81 16y ago120 * 0.8 = 96, not 106
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- JustinSeriously 16y ago
- amichail 16y agoThe debate as to whether the Earth or sun is the center of the universe was silly. It's all about frames of reference and simplicity of calculations in predicting observations. See "The Grand Design" by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow.
- Retric 16y agoPeople prefer a simplified view of history where people where dumb and ignorant even if it's often proven wrong. The reality is reasonably correct interpretations / ideas are often replaced by misinformation for long periods of time. The most obvious example is how do you lose a city. But, something as simple as crop rotation is often found, then lost then found again. For a more popular example, two thousand years ago many people thought the earth was round based on a wide range of evidence. They even calculated the size of the earth with a fair amount of precision. A more striking example a scurvy cure was found, then lost and then found again over hundreds of years. http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm
- Andrew_Quentin 16y agoMight that not be because people were illiterate and any permanent record was very rare indeed? Perhaps people were indeed dumb and ignorant. If no one told you all of these things since birth, would you have any idea that the earth goes around the moon. Supposing you are a knight, a farmer, a priest, a whatever, rather than someone dedicating yourself to the study of the stars, and no one told you ever that the earth goes around the sun, or even moves, would you ever find out or know at all and would you not believe the priest or whoever seems to know about the subject. It is not that people are dumb. They just do not know. A doctor can tell me whatever he likes that sounds reasonable and as I would have no option I would believe him.
- Retric 16y agoThe most educated have learned quite a bit, but once you start talking about average populations you find a higher percentage of people in the US belied in evolution 100 years ago than do today. And when you start taking about actual numbers you find that there are over a billion people that can't read living in the world today. Heck, due to the population increase there are probably more people in the world today that believe the world is flat than did in the 300 BC and there pictures of the thing.
- senki 16y agoThe worse belief is that science has anything to do with belief. Or, I believe so...
- vibragiel 16y agoI think Edge picked a very bad word. Isn't "scientific belief" is a silly oxymoron? At least, many of those "beliefs" weren't actually beliefs, but scientific theories that worked very well but were later improved. It's the case of Newtonian gravitational force.
- michael_dorfman 16y agoIsn't "scientific belief" is a silly oxymoron? Not at all. At least, not if you are interested in epistemology. In fact, one common definition of knowledge is "justified true belief." Cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justified_true_belief http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justified_true_belief
- boredguy8 16y agoThat's not a common definition held in epistemology: The Gettier problem decimated that view a while ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem
- philwelch 16y agoBut only the "justified" part. Truth and belief are still necessary conditions.
- boredguy8 16y agoYou're missing the points, which are: A) "Justified true belief" as the criterion for knowledge is not common in epistemology, contra the initial comment; b) "Scientific belief" is an odd term given that you either have "knowledge" or you have "false beliefs" based on best available science.
- siglesias 16y agoLet the Kuhn v. Popper debates begin... EDIT: To clarify, using the term "erroneous" under the Kuhnian view (disclaimer, my view), is a bit disingenuous because the criteria under which we are claiming these theories to be wrong did not exist in their historical contexts: on the contrary, some of these theories, such as gravity, happenned to be progressive, brilliant, and in some cases extremely useful as a simplifying framework in the next paradigm. All of the historical and technological ingredients, such as the ability to calculate the speed of light accurately, or Maxwell's equations didn't exist for Newton. Do we call that he missed it an error? In my opinion, "erroneous" as a term should be reserved for beliefs that were incorrect given existing frameworks: Lamarkian evolution, Einstein's cosmological constant, the postulating of the lumeferious ether, Hilbert's axiomatic program that was disproven in his time by Godel...THESE were erroneous. It would be like saying in the future when (hypothetically) a more advanced technology comes along and computes a totally revolutionary and paradigm-shifting scientific framework that our views in 2010 are "erroneous". Probably a little extreme.
- herdrick 16y agoAside: it's looking like Lamarck was right.
- radu_floricica 16y agoI'd really like some detail on this...
- jbert 16y agoBasically, some life events lead to inheritable changes. The mechanism is apparently methylation (or other similar changes) to the DNA. Why this is inheritable I do not understand. One rather relevant example from a recent new scientist that, in rats, overweight dad rats had offspring who more likely to get diabetes. I get the impression it's early days with all this stuff, but it's going to be interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051026090636.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051026090636.ht... http://ndt.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/4/1088.full http://ndt.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/4/1088.full
- jpablo 16y agoVery relevant here is Isaac Asimov's The Relativity of Wrong: http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1147968 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1147968
- baddox 16y agoThe belief that Earth was flat only existed up until around eight thousand years ago, before the institution of anything you could call "science," so I don't even think that one should count.
- KaeseEs 16y agoI was really disappointed to see that sort of thing mentioned; I had been hoping for better, more wild-goose-chase-y examples where the wrong hypothesis was compelling and consistent with equations that accurately modeled reality - things like the luminiferous ether, which yielded the accurate Lorentz equations, and the caloric theory of heat which yielded many accurate equations and experimental results (indeed, its fluid model of heat is so parallel to reality that you probably recall your mechanical engineer friends at school taking "thermals and fluids" classes). The Earth being flat was debunked the first time someone saw a boat come in to pier and is thoroughly uninteresting.
- Natsu 16y agoWell, what about the notion of a fixed earth around which other things rotate? Granted, this gets fuzzy about how wrong it is when you consider that there's no absolute reference frame, but if you read history, you'll find out that the reason they couldn't believe that the earth was moving was that they could not measure the stellar parallax. In other words, they knew that the stars should appear to shift a little if the earth was moving. Yes, they do in fact shift, but they're so many light years away that it took a long time before anyone came up with anything that could measure it.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago>Well, what about the notion of a fixed earth around which other things rotate? As you, and relativity, say - it's not wrong to choose an arbitrary fixed point. >it took a long time before anyone came up with anything that could measure [stellar parallax] Indeed, the Pythagoreans assumed terrestrial motion (according to Copernicus) just as others assumed opposite. Neither assumption is bad, neither is worse given that there was no obtainable evidence to support either position at the time.
- ottbot 16y agoNo mention of the incorrect theories of flight/lift, which are or were very common. Here is a good summary: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/wrong1.html http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/wrong1.html
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- Estragon 16y agoDirichlet used the ~4000 B.c. date for the creation of the Earth in one of his examples of statistical inference. Not sure whether that counts as believing it, though.
- J3L2404 16y agoThe belief in an "Luminiferous aether" for the transmission of radio waves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether
- adolph 16y agoI think that one of the interesting threads between contributors to this is the general expression of empathy and consideration for those who espoused or worked towards ideas that were later proven mistaken. An example is Charles Simonyi: I think we are all too fast to label old theories "wrong" and with this we weaken the science of today — people say — with some justification from the facts as given to them — that since the old "right" is now "wrong" the "right" of today might be also tainted. I do not believe this — today's "right" is just fine, because yesterday's "wrong" was also much more nuanced "more right" that we are often led to believe.
- j_baker 16y agoI like this one. It almost seems to be a contradict our current education system: "Among cognitive psychologists, there is widespread agreement that people learn best when they are actively engaged with a topic, have to actively problem solve, as we would put it 'construct meaning.' Yet, among individuals young and old, all over the world, there is a view that is incredibly difficult to dislodge. To wit: Education involves a transmission of knowledge/information from someone who is bigger and older (often called 'the sage on the stage') to someone who is shorter, younger, and lacks that knowledge/information. No matter how many constructivist examples and arguments are marshaled, this view — which I consider a misconception — bounces back. And it seems to be held equally by young and old, by individuals who succeeded in school as well as by individuals who failed miserably. Now this is not a scientific misconception in the sense of flat earth or six days of creation, but it is an example of a conception that is extraordinarily robust, even though almost no one who has studied cognition seriously believes it hold water. Let me take this opportunity to express my appreciation for your many contributions to our current thinking."
- dkarl 16y agoThat one sounds rather argumentative. He's taking conventional wisdom about learning (active engagement, problem solving) that is accepted dogma among practicing teachers (at least in U.S. primary and secondary schools) and trying to paint it as a minority view. Without hearing some evidence for the robustness of the "transmission" idea, I'm tempted to dismiss this as a rhetorical trick. I suspect there are some popular classroom practices he disagrees with, and he's trying to stigmatize them by linking them to an old, discredited idea.
- johnzabroski 16y agoU.S. primary and secondary schools do not accept the constructivist school as dogma. Perhaps you have simply misunderstood the differences he was stressing. For more information on this, you should probably look at what Seymour Papert has been doing in Maine lately.
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- A_A 16y agoSome of my favorite "wrong" or erroneous 'beliefs' (apart from the Flat Earth, and geo-centric beliefs) -- Luminiferous ether: that light propagates via the "ether" medium -- "Bad air" theory of infectious diseases (which is still held in many countries) -- "Stress causes ulcers" -- Leprosy is contagious -- The belief that first five (or two, or three) years of a child's life determine his/her personality in adulthood. This is one is still widely held and accepted. Oh, and just for kicks: 'Intelligent Design' and its variants. :-) And just to throw it out: What will it take to convince that Global Warming / Climate Change is real? This is perhaps one of the leading least-understood / most controversial beliefs of our times.
- iwr 16y agoLeprosy is slightly contagious, but significant over very long exposures.
- ranprieur 16y agoI wonder what beliefs we have now that will be ridiculed in 500 years.
- Avshalom 16y agoI don't know about ridiculed but once quantum gravity gets sorted out there is a good chance that either relativity or quantum mechanics is going to be "wrong" in the sense the Newtonian sense of "inaccurate at X scale."
- davidj 16y agoLook at my comment with -4 at the very bottom, already being ridiculed right now :)
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- kadavy 16y agoI like this one: > Among cognitive psychologists, there is widespread agreement that people learn best when they are actively engaged with a topic, have to actively problem solve, as we would put it 'construct meaning.' Yet, among individuals young and old, all over the world, there is a view that is incredibly difficult to dislodge. To wit: Education involves a transmission of knowledge/information from someone who is bigger and older (often called 'the sage on the stage') to someone who is shorter, younger, and lacks that knowledge/information. No matter how many constructivist examples and arguments are marshaled, this view — which I consider a misconception — bounces back. And it seems to be held equally by young and old, by individuals who succeeded in school as well as by individuals who failed miserably.
- arethuza 16y agoMy maths is pretty rusty but... I think describing Euclidean Geometry as wrong is a bit harsh - it's just the system you get when you treat the Parallel Postulate as axiomatic. If you allow variation in this area you get Elliptical/Hyperbolic geometries - but these extend Euclidean Geometry, they don't invalidate it.
- lkrubner 16y ago"Wrong" might overstate it, but certainly, for a long time Euclidean Geometry was thought to be a statement about an absolute truth that existed in the Universe. There could be no other geometry. Recall the shock and dismay with which the educated public first heard about hyperbolic geometry. If math is always true, they wondered, then how could another geometry exist alongside Euclidean Geometry? It was as if reality had been disproven. It took a long time for the educated public to come round to the view that we could have multiple geometries, each true for certain given assumptions.
- arethuza 16y agoThat is, of course, correct - but surely that is more how Euclidean Geometry was interpreted rather than there actually being an internal problem with Euclidean Geometry.
- Jach 16y agoWouldn't this be a case of Newtonian mechanics as well? There's nothing "wrong" with the math, other than it doesn't fully explain reality like we initially thought it did, and so the theory is wrong. A lot less wrong than anything we had before, but still wrong.
- arethuza 16y agoBut don't all theories of the physical world come with caveats and assumptions attached? In the case of Newtonian mechanics it is clear that there are cases (the very small, the very fast) where it doesn't apply - but that doesn't mean it isn't useful in more normal contexts. I seem to recall (I could well be wrong) that the calculations for the Voyager space probes are all done using Newtonian mechanics. For something to be wrong implies to me that it is of no utility - which clearly isn't the case with Newtons work.
- kadavy 16y ago> that a person who became fat through overeating would thereby have fat children I believe this is actually true. It's called epigenetics, & there was a great StuffYouShouldKnow Podcast about it: http://castroller.com/podcasts/StuffYouShould/1687893-Can%20your%20grandfathers%20diet%20shorten%20your%20life http://castroller.com/podcasts/StuffYouShould/1687893-Can%20...
- evandijk70 16y agoOne belief that wasn't mentioned is the idea of phlogiston. It's the idea that flammable material contains a substance called phlogiston and that the escaping of that substance is equivalent to burning. This believe was held for around a hundred years, from the end of the seventeenth century until the end of the eighteenth century See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory
- jodrellblank 16y agoWave function collapse? http://lesswrong.com/lw/q7/if_manyworlds_had_come_first/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/q7/if_manyworlds_had_come_first/ (I don't understand it, but I like it).
- mcritz 16y agoI’m shocked that none of the experts mentioned any of widely-held Eastern “scientific beliefs” in dietary supplements, herbal remedies, or reflexology. These are still commonly practiced yet are scientifically proven no more effective than a placebo.
- khafra 16y agoMany herbs are pharmacologically active, to the point of being dangerous if taken in conjunction with OTC or prescription medication. Rhino horn and reflexology do seem to belong in the "bogus belief" category.
- mcritz 16y agoExactly! Peyote, aspirin, cannabis, et cetera are real drugs. Most herbs are not active. Some herbs can even worsen the condition they are traditionally used to treat.
- Andrew_Quentin 16y agoIf they are dangerous, they might, or at least some of them might, be beneficial no?
- mcritz 16y agoScientifically proven beneficial substances are called medicines. They are FDA approved for the purpose of treatment.
- Andrew_Quentin 16y agoare you suggesting that all the herbs and whatever the chinese use have been tested for all the known diseases?
- iwr 16y agoThe idea that medieval people believed in a flat Earth is not true. The shape and approximate size of the Earth was knowm since ancient times (3rd century BC). Columbus was not turned down at first because people believed he'd fall off the edge of the Earth; they knew he could not have possibly reached Asia, the distance was too great. It was only pure luck (finding America) that saved him. A venture capitalist in those times would have been rational not to buy into the expedition. As for geocentrism, that has some merits. But note that Ptolemy and his followers were really hindered by a lack of good astronomical data. Using methods of those times, an epicyclical model of the planets was pretty accurate and could have been refined further. The model of Copernicus was deemed superior because it needed fewer epicycles to make the math right. The breakthrough came only after Kepler got the very accurate Huygens observations (taken over 20 years); after he had enough datapoints, he could come up with his famous laws. And so, let's not blame the Ancients right away. They were not as ignorant as we may believe.
- fhars 16y agoReasonable people thought that the ocean (without america, there would be no separate atlantic and pacific ocean) was considerably smaller than it really is, not least due to the impossibility to reliably measure longitude, so they vastly overestimated the east-west extension of eurasia. Just look at the globes Behaim made in 1491-1493 (based on data by Pope Sixtus IV) which shows a really small ocean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Behaim#The_Erdapfel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Behaim#The_Erdapfel According to the best contemporary data, the investment would have been highly speculative (as all voyages across the sea), but not insanely so.
- brc 16y agoMaybe the flat earth theory was invoked as a polite way of telling Columbus no. In the same way that many investors never say no, they often say 'not right now'. The story must have had a kernel of truth to grow from.
- grandalf 16y agoThe problem doesn't have to do with human rationality, but has to do with human subservience to authority.
- davidj 16y agoHell I can give you currently held beliefs that I can prove wrong: Global Warming: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5576670191369613647 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5576670191369613647 Big Bang: http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/bang.php http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/bang.php Floride is good for you: http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/accidents/acute.html http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/accidents/acute.html Mercury is good for you: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a910652305~db=all~jumptype=rss http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a910652305~... Keynesian Economics : ..Just look at the dollar index.
- Evgeny 16y agoMany (but not all) scientists assumed the far side of the moon would turn out to look much the same as the side we are familiar with. [...] And I argued with Hornig [Donald Hornig, Chairman of the President's Science Advisory Committee] about it and he said, 'Why? It looks just like this side.' And it turned out it didn't." I did not know that. How significant is the difference?
- zephyrfalcon 16y agoSee for example http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/clementine/images/ http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/clementine/images/ esp. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/clementine/images/img5_lg.gif http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/clementine/images/img...
- brc 16y agoReading through the list, it shows just what a high standard any current theory must be held to, given the amount of past failures in what are fundamental understandings of the world we inhabit.
- joshcrews 16y agoThis is a great reminder to have skepticism and humility about current scientific beliefs that are so widely accepted they are axioms today.
- jeffreymcmanus 16y agoIt's interesting that "stress causes ulcers" keeps coming up again and again, this one is clearly a favorite among a lot of scientists.
- known 16y agoOne more is God == Religion