Leary was a psychologist, and might be looked at somewhat askance as a “soft scientist”. Lilly actually had hard science degrees and received a medical degree. But if you read something like “Eye of the Cyclone”, you discover that he was just as far off the deep end as Leary, if not further. The man dropped acid before floating in isolation tanks (the movie “Altered States” was loosely based on his activities).
But IIRC alchemy and chemistry hadn’t been differentiated at the time, nor were the chemical elements recognized for what they were. Given the then-current notion of only four elements–earth, air, fire, and water, the idea that transmutation was possible was not outlandish.
Hubbard was never a scientist. He attended college for two years and got pretty awful grades. He later claimed to have a Ph.D., which turned out to be from one of those non-accredited diploma mills.
Modern chemistry is usually regarded as having started with Boyle in the mid-17th century, during Newton’s lifetime. But even alchemists didn’t subscribe to the silly notion of “earth, air, fire and water.” Many of the chemical elements have been known since antiquity, although the discoveries of most of them didn’t start to gain steam until just after Newton’s death.
Two physicists know of believe that at least some UFOs really are visiting alien spacecraft. One’s at Harvard, the other’s at MIT ( I took a course from him as an undergrad). Both have taken quite a bit of flak over this.
In general, you can’t believe anything ‘official’ about Hubbard because it was all made up by him and the Church of Scientology, the corporate cult he founded. To all reliable accounts, Hubbard was a lackluster student, a decidedly mediocre Naval officer, and absolutely nothing like a real scientist.
To be fair, it is not physically impossible. Highly unlikely, but not physically impossible.
In any case, I think Tesla is the premiere example of the kind of person this thread is looking for. Nobody else matched his highs and lows.
Serge Lang: “HIV does not cause AIDS”.
Actually that’s a gross oversimplification of his position, but it’s not too far off from how it was received and he didn’t do much to make his point clearer.
The astronomer J. Allen Hynek began as a UFO skeptic, advising the various Air Force projects investigating reports of them. Later he cast doubt on them and even founded the Center for UFO Studies. But toward the end of his life he was returning to skepticism.
Not quite. Copernicus had the eminent good sense to first, present his theory as merely a convenient calculational tool rather than actual truth, and second, to not publish until he was on his deathbed. It was Galileo who took up the heliocentric torch and got himself very unpopular with the Church, and even that was due more to him making the Pope out to be a buffoon than to the theory itself.
Thanks, everyone. Many, many good suggestions. I used the Tesla example.
I was directed by my friend to a Fox News commentary 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.”
I sent him the following as a response to the Fox News piece–
Unfortunately, I was unable to find any real “perspective” on trans fats in Mr. Milloy’s bitter and illogical tirade.
I kept waiting for him to get to the point and talk about why the ban on trans fats is a bad idea. Instead, he engages in a number of the most obvious and egregious forms of deceptive argumentation to dodge the real issue.
First, he links the Board’s decision to research done by Ascherio and Millet. According to Milloy, the decision is “directly traceable” back to them. Where is the evidence that it is directly traceable? Don’t look too hard—there is none. We’re supposed to believe there is a link based on Milloy’s assertion alone.
He then goes on to discredit Ascherio and Millet’s research—in a myriad of areas other than their research on trans fats. He never actually deals with the relevant research head on, instead he distracts the reader with other, more outlandish research to try to discredit by association (given the tactics used in the article I do not trust the information, anyway).
So, what’s the strategy here?
First, Milloy links the idea to the most potentially disreputable source he can find by simply saying that it is “directly traceable” to it and provides no evidence for that link. Actually establishing the link could be problematic because the fact of the matter is it is more likely that the Board based its decision on information from sources like the New England Journal of Medicine , et al.
This is sort of like hating Volkswagens because they have their origin in the Third Reich. And that link really is directly traceable. (Have I invoked Godwin’s law? I don’t think so—this is an illustrative point).
Introducing facts and being intellectually honest, though, just makes argumentation more difficult; besides, Mr. Milloy knows his target audience, and he knows that his readers will eat this up like a trans fat laden stack of Oreos, no questions asked.
Second, Milloy decides that maybe Ascherio and Millet’s research about trans fats is a bit too good, so instead of attacking it head on he talks about their other research.
This is kind of like criticizing Tesla ’s discoveries that led to AC power by attacking his more outlandish theories of teleportation and time travel. This may work when you are impeaching the credibility of a witness at trial, but it doesn’t work in the realm of science.
Ascherio and Millet’s research on trans fats is out there—their hypotheses, methodologies and conclusions are public. Why not confront the research head on and criticize it on its merits?
Because it’s easier to attack weaker arguments, and Milloy can get away with doing so even when those arguments are wholly irrelevant to the topic at hand because, again, his readers will swallow it whole like a fried snickers bar greased with partially hydrogenated oil.
I don’t necessarily agree with what NY City has done—but we don’t get anywhere by being lazy like Mr. Milloy.
So, thanks for all of the suggestions.
The trans fat issue is interesting, but not something I have any expertise with–but as a law student I try my best to spot spurious arguments.
The article that Milloy is whining about is likely this one:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/66/4/1006S
"A Ascherio and WC Willett
Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
trans Fatty acids are formed during the process of partial hydrogenation in which liquid vegetable oils are converted to margarine and vegetable shortening. Concern has existed that this process may have adverse consequences because natural essential fatty acids are destroyed and the new artificial isomers are structurally similar to saturated fats, lack the essential metabolic activity of the parent compounds, and inhibit the enzymatic desaturation of linoleic and linolenic acid. In the past 5 y a series of metabolic studies has provided unequivocal evidence that trans fatty acids increase plasma concentrations of low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol and reduce concentrations of high-density-lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol relative to the parent natural fat. In these same studies, trans fatty acids increased the plasma ratio of total to HDL cholesterol nearly twofold compared with saturated fats. On the basis of these metabolic effects and the known relation of blood lipid concentrations to risk of coronary artery disease, we estimate conservatively that 30,000 premature deaths/y in the United States are attributable to consumption of trans fatty acids. Epidemiologic studies, although not conclusive on their own, are consistent with adverse effects of this magnitude or even larger. Because there are no known nutritional benefits of trans fatty acids and clear adverse metabolic consequences exist, prudent public policy would dictate that their consumption be minimized and that information on the trans fatty acid content of foods be available to consumers. "
Which was published in a highly respected Journal, with scads of evidence, and has been citing many many times by others.
Here’s another article about dangers of trans-fats:
http://atvb.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/21/7/1233
"Replacement of Dietary Saturated Fatty Acids by Trans Fatty Acids Lowers Serum HDL Cholesterol and Impairs Endothelial Function in Healthy Men and Women "
Yet another cite:
http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/1/5
IMHO- Milloy, who presents himself as “anti-junk science” is really “anti-laws that decrease the profits of big business”. His site seems to propose that DDT-bans and Global Warming are both “junk science”, and that plastic trash is really good for the oceans- that last because a *certain type of plastic * is often used to clean up.
Milloy is part of the “Free Enterprise Action Fund” which means that less controls on big business = more cash in his pocket.
Note that some of what Malloy calls “junk science” really is junk science.
The point about trans-fats is that they are bad for you, and that they have no benefits other than a tiny price saving. Malloy is being disingenuous when he says “New Yorkers could, for example, see restaurants banned from serving potatoes, peas, peanuts, beans, lentils, orange juice and grapefruit juice. Ascherio-Willett reported an increase in the risk of heart disease among consumers of these foods in the Annals of Internal Medicine (June 2001). Although none of those slight correlations were statistically meaningful – and, in all probability, were simply meaningless chance occurrences – a similar shortcoming didn’t seem to matter to the Board when it came to their trans fats research.” As the trans-fat research showed a significant correlation, not a slight correlation. :rolleyes: No one is suggesting that anything be banned on account of a slight correlation. :dubious:
Not differentiated at the time? Maybe early in his life, but by the time he began to really concentrate on it, chemistry was ignoring alchemy.
In a recent NOVA documentary it was shown that by the time Newton was growing metal trees, others were already looking for less outlandish applications and were developing chemistry.
Unfortunately, Newton did hide and write his alchemy research in code. As researchers are decoding his notes, it is becoming clear that Newton was not even part of the debunking of alchemy.
Huh. I thought Trans-fats were supposed to give the fried food a particular taste and/or texture? If that’s not the case, then I’m even less annoyed by the ban than I was before. For the most part, I’ve been amused in a head-shaking way by it, but I figure people and resteraunts will just learn to cope with the change.
A very interesting thread and welcome to the boards SLCsteve. I hope you stick around. 
Tycho Brahe took astrology as seriously as astronomy.
Peter Duesberg is a fantastic example.
The guy did fantastic work on oncogenes in the 70s, and was very well respected. Enough that he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in the 80s.
And his career is now dedicated to proving that HIV has nothing to do with AIDS, and that AIDS is actually caused by drugs that gay people tend to use.
In his book The Demon-Haunted World Carl Sagan gave a list of errors he personally had made as an example of how science works –[Conclusions emerging from a premise, and the validity of the premise should not be discounted or accepted because of favor.]
One of those errors was that Sagan predicted on Nightline in 1991 that the smoke from the fires that the retreating Iraqi army set in the Kuwaiti oil feilds would cause a worldwide ecological disaster resulting in global cooling.
Sagan also apparently believed (that there was a 50-50 chance of finding animals like Polar Bears on Mars
(cite #2)
What theories? All I’ve read on the subject was that he used a figure of speech on how sensitive a piece of equipment was ‘so sensitive that if there is life after death, it will pick up the evidence’. All he said was that it was sensitive, not that he believed in life after death or built the machine for that purpose.
John Napier was a brilliant mathematician who invented logarithms. He also dabbled enough in science and invention to qualify as a “scientist”.
He viewed both math and science as sidelights to his major life work, the Plaine Discovery of the Whole Work of St. John–an incoherent and worthless attempt to explicate the Book of Revelation.
Sagan, while not necessarialy whole-heartedly promoting the idea that UFOs were actually flying saucers from outer space, nonetheless permitted it (as well as abduction theories) more credence than most physical scientists would.
I’m surprised that no one has yet mentioned Kary B. Mullis, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry) and Japan Prize winner for his work in developing the polymerese chain reaction, who has feverently promoted the idea that not only does HIV not cause AIDS, but that the syndrome is actually the result of drug abuse and anal sex. (Although anal sex–unprotected or otherwise–is definitely an anatomically unrecommended activity to engage in, there’s no reason to believe that by itself it causes immune system failure.) Mullis is considered a large size flake by the vast majority of virologists and molecular biologists, and reportedly spends most of his time surfing and smoking pot.
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
I have an official CO$ brochure-it says Hubbard was the most important scientist since Newton!