It is equally erroneous to think that science isn’t inexorably advancing towards the right answer. Every time an accepted scientific theory is proven wrong, it’s by showing that, in general, the accepted theory holds, but in specific cases it’s not true, so the new theory adds a minor modification. Asimov wrote an excellent article on this called The Relativity of Wrong (excerpt linked).
The example he uses is this: Consider when people thought the world was flat. They were wrong, but not so very wrong. The earth deviates from flat by only a few inches per mile. Later, they figured out that the earth was curved, and thought it was a sphere. They were wrong, but the earth deviates from spherical by only a few tenths of an inch per mile. Later, they figured out that the earth was an oblate spheroid, based on a Newtonian gravity theory and rotational acceleration. They were wrong, but the earth deviates from a Newtonian oblate spheroid by only millions of an inch per mile. Now, it’s quite likely that someday soon we’re going to come up with a new theory of quantum gravity or string theory or some other exotic physics that will “disprove” our current science, but when we do, the correction will be a few billionths of an inch per mile.
The idea that changes in scientific theory means that it’s reasonable to believe that scientists might suddenly come out and say that we were wrong all along and the earth is actually pyramidal or something is silly. It’s actually quite rare for a legitimate scientific theory to be completely up-ended.
It’s clear that Pluto was the inspiration for the movie Bull Durham
[Pluto]
Yeah, I was in the show. I was in the show for 75 years once - the 75 greatest years of my life. You know, you never handle your luggage in the show, somebody else carries your bags. It was great. You have your own moon, the solar system is like a cathedrals, the Earth sends probes to look at you, and the women scientists all have long legs and brains.
[/Pluto]
And, interestingly, both the average planet and the average Kuiper object are now bigger.
(In medicine this is called the Will Rogers Phenomenon, from his famous quip that when the Okies moved to California, they raised the average IQ of both states.)
I think I have the perfect candidate, assuming it’s true.
We all grew up hearing our mothers tell us that if we didn’t dress warmly, we’d ‘catch cold’. Scientists generally scoff at that.
Then a study like this comes along…
Your recollection is inaccurate. This has been covered numerous times on the SDMB.
A lot of these things really are a matter of reporting in the popular press, not an accurate picture of the thinking in the scientific community at the time. I’m trying to think of some real examples. I can’t think of many respected scientific theories (in the modern sense), contradicting something that seems “obvious” to laymen, that turned out to be completely wrong.
Sorry to quote this entire post, but I move that this be put into a sticky in GD as a counter to the “Science isn’t always right… Therefore God!” argument
This was a very good example of how science does change.
IANAScientist, but I have noticed the discrepancy between the newscaster’s version of what the scientists say, what those scientists did say, and what the greater body of the particular science says. It’s ridiculous how we like to be spoon fed our pablum without question.
Pluto shouldn’t be trying to date anyone anyway. Pluto and Charon have been in a monogamous relationship for years, they’ve built a strong stable relationship and share a nice little barycenter.
Pluto was getting pretty obnoxious with his delusions of planethood, and it’s high time he respect the fact that Charon does not revolve around him.
heh. nothing kills the humorous mood like bumping up against current orthodoxy.
Because if something like that happened, of course, it just couldn’t be (in the modern sense), now could it?
And I find amusing the assertion (made elsewhere in this thread) that scientists never speak in absolutes, as if they weren’t human and didn’t have (often subconscious) agendas of their own.
Of course, perhaps you might assert that Carl Sagan wasn’t pursuing an agenda when he flatly asserted the truth of “nuclear winter”, or today’s scientists aren’t doing the same when they flatly assert the truth of global warming. Because those things are just true, dagnabit!
In the past, I believe medical professionals said there was no link between excessive reading (or other close-up work) and myopia.
Now I think they like to bandy about a study showing that law students usually have worse eyesight when they graduate than when they enter, presumably due to all the reading needed to complete a law degree.
Did I miss the cascade of nuclear exchanges that would have been the cause of said nuclear winter, and that failed to set it into motion? It seems like the kind of thing they would talk about on the news.
You may have missed Carl Sagan and other scientists making flat assertions that it would happen, contrary to this thread’s erroneous argument that “scientists almost never speak in absolutes”. Whether nuclear winter actually occurred (or failed to occur) stands as immaterial.
Still, it’s amusing to recollect how Sagan had to eat crowafter the Gulf War, when he (again) flatly asserted that Kuwaiti oil fires would cause a worldwide ecological disaster–effectively a miniature “nuclear winter”–which, of course, never materialized.