# Famous Scientists with Outlandish Theories **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2006, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368 "2006-12-08T17:28:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/41 "2006-12-09T08:57:07Z")
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a physician, albeit an unsuccessful one. He believed in fairies and seances. Even among his contemporaries, this was a little bit out there. ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/42 "2006-12-09T13:05:41Z")
[QUOTE=Krokodil] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a physician, albeit an unsuccessful one. He believed in fairies and seances. Even among his contemporaries, this was a little bit out there. [/QUOTE] “Even among his contemporaries”? You make it sound as if he were writing in the Middle Ages. He died in _1930_. But he was a bit weird on the subject of Spiritualism. He wrote a godawful Spiritualist novel called _The Land Of Mist_. I’ve had the misfortune to read it, it’s as if he sacrificed all his writing skill to the cause. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/43 "2006-12-09T17:30:06Z")
[QUOTE=Alive At Both Ends] “Even among his contemporaries”? You make it sound as if he were writing in the Middle Ages. He died in _1930_. But he was a bit weird on the subject of Spiritualism. He wrote a godawful Spiritualist novel called _The Land Of Mist_. I’ve had the misfortune to read it, it’s as if he sacrificed all his writing skill to the cause. [/QUOTE] If there was a such thing as a Spiritualism Fundamentalist, Conan Doyle would fit the bill. He was convinced that his wife was a medium from the spirit world and that his dead relatives were telling him (through Lady Doyle) that there was going to be a worldwide cataclysm any day now. He regularly battled skeptical organizations of the day, often resorting to doctoring evidence and out-and-out lying about what had occurred at seances. Sherlock would not have approved. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/44 "2006-12-09T17:41:13Z")
[Thomas Gold](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold) made some serious contributions to astronomy, as well as theorizing that oil is not from decomposed vegetable matter near the surface but instead is formed by bacteria acting on natural gas flows deep in the earth’s crust. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/45 "2006-12-09T18:35:18Z")
[QUOTE=SLCsteve] I was directed by my friend to a [Fox News commentary](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,235317,00.html) on New York City’s recent decision to ban trans fats in City restaurants and invited to “enjoy this perspective on [New York] City’s recent ban on trans fats.” [/QUOTE] What else do you expect from [Milloy?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy#Criticism) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/46 "2006-12-09T18:47:40Z")
[Percival Lowell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Lowell) was an esteemed astronomer who popularized the “canals on Mars” canard. [Robert Boyle,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyle) one of the fathers of modern chemistry, believed it was possible to transmute metals through alchemy. He even got Parliament to repeal Henry IV’s old statute against multiplying gold or silver. He also believed he had proven the existence of [phlogiston.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston) ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/47 "2006-12-09T19:25:56Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] [Thomas Gold](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold) made some serious contributions to astronomy, as well as theorizing that oil is not from decomposed vegetable matter near the surface but instead is formed by bacteria acting on natural gas flows deep in the earth’s crust. [/QUOTE] To be honest, that doesn’t sound very \*outlandish \* to me, just wrong. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/48 "2006-12-09T20:08:15Z")
I seem to recall that a once-serious scientist (John Gribbon, I think) was involved in the scare-mongering about the wild notion that an unusual alignment of the planets (circa 1979) would case earthquakes. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/49 "2006-12-09T20:17:55Z")
I couldn’t find much in a Google search, probably because I had the scientist’s name spelled wrong. It was [Gribbin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gribbin), not Gribbon. Cecil wrote about the idea [here](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_159b.html). Some people apparently believe the notion was a hoax perpretrated by Gribbin, not an honest belief. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/50 "2006-12-09T20:22:59Z")
> **[John Gribbin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gribbin)** > > John R. Gribbin (born 19 March 1946) is a British science writer and astrophysicist. His subjects include quantum physics, human evolution, climate change and cosmology. He is a visiting fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex. Best known for In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, he has also written biographies of Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Buddy Holly. Robert Macfarlane calls him "one of the finest and most prolific writers of popular science around." John Gribbin graduated with his ... > [@](#): > > In 1974 he published, with Stephen Plagemann, a book with the idea that the massive planet Jupiter would destroy Los Angeles by setting off an earthquake in 1982. This became the infamous _The Jupiter Effect_… > > Gribbin repudiated it in the July 17, 1980 issue of New Scientist where he stated that he had been “too clever by half.” J.B. Rhine was a botanist before he took up ESP. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/51 "2006-12-09T20:25:09Z")
[QUOTE=bibliophage] I couldn’t find much in a Google search, probably because I had the scientist’s name spelled wrong. It was [Gribbin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gribbin), not Gribbon. Cecil wrote about the idea [here](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_159b.html). Some people apparently believe the notion was a hoax perpretrated by Gribbin, not an honest belief. [/QUOTE] [ur=[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John\_Gribbin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gribbin)]Gribbin (a scientist, but better known as a popular science writer) has stated he was “too clever by half.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/52 "2006-12-09T20:27:21Z")
Sorry, [Gribbin.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gribbin) The [Jupiter Effect,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_effect) BTW, is not to be confused with the [Harmonic Convergence,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_Convergence) except in the sense that both are bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/53 "2006-12-09T20:36:26Z")
Edison: It’s probably also problematic to refer to Edison as a “scientist”, rather than an “inventor” or an “industrialist”. Edison did have more than a passing fascination with the paranormal. Here’s an article by Martin Gardner from The Skeptical Enquirer: [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi\_m2843/is\_n4\_v20/ai\_18535410](http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_n4_v20/ai_18535410) It should be noted that Theosophy and Spiritualism were popular in Edison’s day. Many otherwise hardheaded types like various captains of industry subscribed to those notions to some degree. Being the ultimate tinkerer that he was, Edison apparently did occasionally attempt to construct apparatus to investigate paranormal phenomena, rational scientific basis for them or not. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/54 "2006-12-09T21:45:56Z")
[QUOTE=Alive At Both Ends] To be honest, that doesn’t sound very \*outlandish \* to me, just wrong. [/QUOTE] Well, that’s \*another \* way to say “making shit up”, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/55 "2006-12-10T03:42:28Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] [Percival Lowell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Lowell) was an esteemed astronomer who popularized the “canals on Mars” canard. [. [/QUOTE] That’s just being proven wrong by later, better data. Hardly “outlandish”. ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/56 "2006-12-10T05:47:07Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] [Thomas Gold](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold) made some serious contributions to astronomy, as well as theorizing that oil is not from decomposed vegetable matter near the surface but instead is formed by bacteria acting on natural gas flows deep in the earth’s crust. [/QUOTE] What is so outlandish about that? Isn’t methane abundant in the universe? Given several billion years to mutate and evolve, couldn’t a strain of bacteria arise that would use that methane to its advantage, resulting in heavier hydrocarbons? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/57 "2006-12-10T06:10:01Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] I have to agree with **David Simmons** , though: the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics takes the cake. The cat is both alive and dead? That’s wicked freaky. Anybody who buys into that stuff is totally wack. Stranger [/QUOTE] You won’t find us to be so wack when the zombie kittens attack! :eek: _starts loading shotgun shells with birdshot and Willy-Peter_ ---
**Author:** ![misterW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@misterW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misterW)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/58 "2006-12-10T13:45:27Z")
[QUOTE=SLCsteve] Hello, I am looking for a quick example of a famous scientist who had one or more outlandish theories. I have a friend who is trying to call some research into disrepute not by criticizing the specific research but instead by criticizing some of the researchers’ more outlandish theories. I know that famous, legitimate scientists also had some strange theories–I just can’t think of a good example. Thanks! [/QUOTE] Francis Crick (cant get any more famous than that) put forth the idea of directed panspermia – that life on earth may have arisen from a seeding rocket filled with microorganisms sent from another solar system. ---
**Author:** ![Mathochist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c89c15/32.png) [@Mathochist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathochist)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/59 "2006-12-10T22:28:46Z")
[QUOTE=misterW] Francis Crick (cant get any more famous than that) put forth the idea of directed panspermia – that life on earth may have arisen from a seeding rocket filled with microorganisms sent from another solar system. [/QUOTE] And here I thought you meant [this old thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=198659&highlight=fried+semen). ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2006, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368/60 "2006-12-11T00:42:55Z")
I believe Kepler thought the planets’ distances from the sun were based on imaginary polyhedra and spheres nested inside one another. The data coincidentally came close to fitting, and it was too nice of a coincidence for it to be mere coincidence, he thought. I think Einstein’s idea that the passage of time and the length of objects can change depending on your point of view is rather outlandish, as are invisible rays that arise from electric and magnetic fields, and can carry energy and information. They just both happen to be right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/famous-scientists-with-outlandish-theories/383368.md?page=4)