Are the elitist intellectual snobs of academia rubbishing your theory ? Are those big meanies doing the same thing they did to Columbus, Wegener, the Wright brothers, and just about every other revolutionary in history ?
Well, no, they're not. It's a very popular retort from pseudoscientists that "they all laughed at XXX", so I decided to fact-check this as much as possible. While it's certainly true that laypersons have derided scientific geniuses since time began, the case of the scientific establishment rubbishing fringe ideas (at least to a widespread extent even when the evidence in favour of the then-fringe ideas was very good) which subsequently became mainstream is far less clear.
Short summary :
1) Columbus - nope, didn't happen.
2) Giodano Bruno - they did rubbish him but they were right to do so, because he was a crackpot.
3) The Wright bothers - nope, didn't happen.
4) Andreas Vesalius (early anatomist) - mixed responses. Some people did viciously attack him, many were receptive.
5) William Harvey (described blood circulation) - mixed responses. I don't think you can call him "disgraced" as the meme says, but he did lose support. Later he managed to convince people he was right.
6) Galileo - complicated. Heliocentrism was controversial for very good reasons, but others had proposed comparable models without suffering any ill-effects.
7) Everything that can be invented.... - popular idea that scientists at the end of the 19th century were convinced that all the major discoveries were done. Some were, but they seemed to have changed their minds very quickly when relativity came along.
8) Invention of lasers - nope.
9) Discovery of radio waves from space - nope.
10) Magnetic fields in galaxies - not really.
11) Space rockets - probably not.
12) Meteorites - maybe, but only when the evidence was poor.
13) The Big Bang - complicated, but it doesn't seem to have been widely regarded as a crank theory.
14) Wegener - yes, but he didn't defend himself and he didn't have a good mechanism to explain continental drift.
So, if almost the entire scientific establishment is telling you consistently over a protracted period that you're wrong, the chances are overwhelmingly in favour that you're not a misunderstood genius. You're just wrong. Sorry about that.
https://astrorhysy.blogspot.com/2016/07/they-said-i-was-maaaaad.html
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Actually, the Wright brothers should have been attacked for not knowing about the original powered flight, which happened in Chard, Somerset.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chardmuseum.co.uk/Powered_Flight/
Steam powered, too!
Added a link to that because it's very cool. I vaguely remember hearing about this a while back but I couldn't remember the name. Also added a link to George Cayley because he was very cool too, and updated the bit about Columbus.
ReplyDeleteAbout that article on animal conscience, I'm pretty sure you already linked it in a previous post, along with the "Sugar Conspiracy" Guardian article - though I can't tell which one.
ReplyDeleteThere were several things that had left me unconvinced at the time IIRC.
However, the Guardian article was a surprise, as it described pretty much exactly a Conspiracy of the Science Establishment (on one particular subject) for them to keep their seats, with devastating consequences on the general population. From a less well-known source, I would have almost dismissed it out of hand as conspiracy theory nutjobs, in fact.
Using Columbus as an example to defend a pseudoscientist's cause is terribly ironic, though: he was called out because he was wrong, don't expect the Universe to throw a, entire continent in the way just to help your pet theory - we've out of those.
Also, the Lion as Truth is better than you give it credit for:
- Many will hunt it down when they feel threatened by it - particularly people with guns, as well as authorities in the name of keeping us safe
- In other places, it is only kept alive by hard-working specialists
- Authorities often prefer to keep it behind bars, in places where you have to go out of your way to go and see it in the best cases - and kept as expensive pets for very private use at second worst
- And at worst, it has been driven to extinction in the entire area
- But sometimes it escapes and can wreck havoc - though don't overestimate what it can accomplish before being shot down either.
About Giordano Bruno, a friend of mine showed me this: http://www.biblisem.net/etudes/desdbrun.htm (in French, though Google Translate should do a decent job at it).
ReplyDeleteIt is a historian advancing that even Bruno's condemnation is contentious, his main points being:
- No-one seems to have heard about it until a century later
- Rome was actually known for not burning people to death at the time, so this would have been most unusual
- The only source about Bruno's death is a letter attributed to a certain Gaspard Schopp, both patented liar and Catholic Church apologist, so why the Hell would he had ever written such a letter
- There is no source talking about Bruno after his arrival at Rome in 1598, apart from said letter about his death in 1600
The thing is, this article has been written in 1885, and we still couldn't find new contemporary sources about Bruno's death. A hypothesis we heard was that Bruno wouldn't have been burned to death, but put in a convent.
Would anyone have more info about this? It seems more probable that we missed some other source at the time, as for the "Science Martyr" Bruno to not even have been burned to death, we would be past the mere misremembered historical figure.
They wouldn't get it that wrong, would they?
Elie Thorne
ReplyDeleteAbout that article on animal conscience, I'm pretty sure you already linked it in a previous post, along with the "Sugar Conspiracy" Guardian article - though I can't tell which one.
Thanks, that narrows it down significantly since the sugar article came out in 2016. I'll have to re-read the sugar article again, offhand I'd say that could be a case of money being influential. Can't see that being much of a factor in animal intelligence studies...
Also, the Lion as Truth is better than you give it credit for:
Hah ! Yes, you're right, it works much better if you take it literally. :)
Interesting about Bruno. The translation is not great (surprising for French), but I'll take your word for it and add the link. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the whole thing was fiction... then again, I'd be surprised if something like it had never happened. There were a few close calls over the centuries. Also I found one very clear example in the Jewish world, unfortunately I seem to have left the book ("Yiddish Civilisation") back in Cardiff.
In any case, the impression one gets today is that the medieval period was one where you couldn't say the world wasn't flat before a cackling Inquisitor would swoop down and burn you, your house, your favourite potted plant, your your family and all their pets. Which is a bit like saying that one cannot propose an alternative to dark matter without being hounded out of academia while whole physics institutes line the streets to jeer and laugh and throw rotten fruit...
Just wondering, do you mean animal conscience, Elie Thorne, or animal consciousness? Apologies if it's clarified in a link...
ReplyDeleteChris Blackmore Sorry, I meant consciousness. Both words are the same in my native language...
ReplyDeleteAlso, maybe political science would be a better place for the Maaaad Scientist, as it is often impossible to have a consensus in the first place.
According to one of his comments a few days ago Dan Weese missed an opportunitie to crash a international summit in the '90 and cackle "You thought I was mad! You laughed at me when I foretold the fall of the USSR! But now you all see my genius!" before disappearing in a cloud of white smoke and an evil laughter...
Elie Thorne Ah, thanks! Now I understand the comments...
ReplyDeleteHmm, I've gone through all my posts of 2016 and I still can't find a link to that bloomin' article.
ReplyDelete