I can think of a few, starting with a very recently retired idea: 1. All biological life depends on sunlight. Falsified first by bacterial colonies that thrive

I can think of a few, starting with a very recently retired idea: 1. All biological life depends on sunlight. Falsified first by bacterial colonies that thrive near deep-sea volcanic vents. 2. Light requires an ether for its transmission. Falsified by the classic Michelson-Morley experiment. 3. The universe is static in overall size, "... which required Professor Einstein to add a cosmological constant to his intellectual masterpiece to make it agree with observation." Falsified soon after by observations that led to the Big Bang theory. 4. Phlogiston, the idea that burning matter relied on a hypothetical essence responsible for the combustion. 5. Universal and constant space and time, an idea favored by Isaac Newton, falsified by relativity. 6. Inheritance of acquired traits, falsified by modern genetics (but to some extent argued with by the new field of epigenetics). Just a few that come to mind.