# Ridiculed scientific breakthroughs **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 19, 2009, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698 "2009-09-19T06:09:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/41 "2009-09-19T22:24:51Z")
> [@Claire\_Beauchamp](#): > > I would not have used the word “suppressed” – that implies all sorts of conspiratorial intent – but it WAS derided. Here’s an obit of Al Freedberg, another scientist whose work pointed to H. pylori, and who was considered a crank on this topic, despite the rest of his work being well-regarded: [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/health/24freedberg.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/health/24freedberg.html) That link does not say what you suggest it does. Freedberg found bacteria which may have been Helicobacter in a third of his ulcer patients - not exactly an overwhelming correlation. Contrary to the idea that he was dismissed as a “crank”, the article states that others tried to replicate his work and could not. Other theories were more widely accepted and stood until there was good, reproducible evidence to the contrary. That’s how science works. > [@Claire Beauchamp](#): > > Meanwhile, billions of dollars were spent on antacids and chasing the wrong solutions and people still suffered and even died. Here you are wrongly suggesting that all the therapy for gastric ulcers was completely useless - not the case. It would’ve been highly useful if the role of H. pylori had been proven earlier, but it was not…and the lack of a proven link cannot be conveniently ascribed to a scoffing, hidebound medical/scientific establishment. It makes for a nice exploitable myth, but it’s still a myth. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/42 "2009-09-19T22:41:39Z")
I would say any discovery that serious medical conditions can be prevented or cured with nutrition has been and is still extremely controversial. Some people were promoting various fruits as a treatment for scurvy 200 years before it became a treatment the world actually took seriously. It was discovered several years ago that children in developed nations who got vitamin A supplements had about 30-40% lower mortality than those who did not. It was ridiculed at first. It is now being discovered that vitamin D may play a role in various mental illnesses (depression, autism) as well as many chronic diseases of old age (osteoarthritis, cancer, type II diabetes, CVD). So I’d say anything to do with preventing or treating serious disease with nutrition or orthomolecular medicine is criticized heavily. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/43 "2009-09-20T01:41:37Z")
> [@Uncertain](#): > > Some of the cases people are mentioning don’t involve ridicule. Skepticism and disbelief are not the same as ridicule. Quite so. Skepticism and, indeed, sustained and vigorous criticism of new ideas and claims is a normal, proper and necessary part of the scientific process. _Every_ new idea or finding that is worth a damn gets those, and a good thing too. Most new scientific ideas and “discoveries” turn out to be wrong, and those that don’t (i.e., those that survive all the criticism) will generally emerge from the ordeal in a very different, and much improved form. No doubt, also, people engaged in this critical process will occasionally make wisecracks about the ideas that they think are wrong. By contrast (and contrary to certain popular beliefs) widespread and sustained _ridicule_ of significant new ideas or findings is rare. No, they did **not** all laugh at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/44 "2009-09-20T01:59:33Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > No, they did **not** all laugh at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round. No, they simply pointed out that his theory that Japan was 3,000 miles west of Lisbon was almost certainly wrong. And it was 🙂 If the evidence for the existence of radioactivity hadn’t been overwhelmingly strong, no physicist of the day would have credited it. It flatly contradicted everything scientists thought they knew about how physics worked. A hypothesis of how it worked had to be built from the bare experimental facts uncovered. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/45 "2009-09-20T03:07:35Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > It was discovered several years ago that children in developed nations who got vitamin A supplements had about 30-40% lower mortality than those who did not. It was ridiculed at first. Can we see some evidence for this supposed “ridicule”? > [@](#): > > It is now being discovered that vitamin D may play a role in various mental illnesses (depression, autism) as well as many chronic diseases of old age (osteoarthritis, cancer, type II diabetes, CVD). > > So I’d say anything to do with preventing or treating serious disease with nutrition or orthomolecular medicine is criticized heavily. There is a problem with leaping on any bandwagon that says that vitamins or other nutritional supplements have widespread beneficial effects against disease. Not long ago vitamin E was considered to be extremely promising as a cancer preventative. One application with some supporting data was in the prevention of prostate cancer. But lo and behold, [when a large clinical trial was done](http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/301/1/39), vitamin E (and selenium, another supposed protective agent) did _not_ have a protective effect against prostate cancer. Similarly, vitamin E [was not found to help prevent lung cancer](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022901267.html); in fact there’s some indication it may _heighten_ lung cancer risk when taken as a supplement. Before raising recommended daily allowances for vitamins and minerals, or encouraging supplement use, researchers and clinicians would like to see good evidence from clinical trials that these changes would have value and not have unsuspected negative effects. This is not “ridicule” or “cynicism”, but good science and medicine. A lot of people want to think there are cheap supplements that are effective in preventing or treating a wide range of diseases, and are eager to believe that these magic bullets exist. The multi-billion dollar supplement industry is eager to support such beliefs despite flimsy or nonexistent evidence. Skepticism is warranted. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/46 "2009-09-20T03:54:07Z")
Well, some \*ideas \*are met with skepticism, but few real scientific Theories have met met much serious ridicule. Let’s take Wegener’s continental drift _“theory”_ . It wasn’t a \*Theory \*at all- it was a \*Hypothesis \*that had no testable data to back it up. Yes, he was right but he had no evidence of any mechanism. He just made a educated guess and was lucky enough to be right. So, although perhaps the \*Hypothesis \*met with more ridicule than it deserved, Scientists of the day were quite right to say “Interesting hypothesis-when you get testable data come back, until then we’ll shelve it”. In fact, if they _had_ accepted it, they would have been wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/47 "2009-09-20T04:07:32Z")
This doesn’t really fit the OP’s criteria, but I’ve heard there was a “fact” widely espoused way back when that the human body cannot withstand speeds of x miles per hour (30mph, 40mph etc), and so train travel can never catch on. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/48 "2009-09-20T04:12:05Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > [Prions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion) were derided as nonsense by many scientists for quite some time as I recall. As I recall, much of the ridicule, from me f’rinstance, came from claims that a prion could remain infectious after complete (not partial) incineration and its reduction to its component oxates etc. It gave a prion an almost-supernatural quality. ETA: Creepy proteins? I’m all over them. Ones that can be reduced to carbon dioxide, simple nitrogen compounds, and water and can still replicate? You lost me. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/49 "2009-09-20T22:22:19Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > As I recall, much of the ridicule, from me f’rinstance, came from claims that a prion could remain infectious after complete (not partial) incineration and its reduction to its component oxates etc. It gave a prion an almost-supernatural quality. > > ETA: Creepy proteins? I’m all over them. Ones that can be reduced to carbon dioxide, simple nitrogen compounds, and water and can still replicate? You lost me. I’ve never seen such a claim. If you could point me to one, I’d be interested. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/50 "2009-09-20T22:36:09Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > One area that was significantly ridiculed before coming into wide (nearly universal) acceptance is endosymbiotic theory, that is, that many organelles inside eukaryotic cells are actually developed from prokaryotic organisms which formed a symbiotic relationship with their host and eventually relinquished their own independent reproductive capability. Mitochondria, for instance, which have their own chromosomes, are subservient and rely upon their hosts for reproduction, so they are carried down the matrilineal germ line (always inherited from the mother). In turn, mitochondria produce and regulate energy for the cells, and may have been the key to developing specialized cellular function that lead to cooperative multicellular organisms. The theory was originally advanced by Constantin Mérejkovsk in 1909, but not widely disseminated until Lynn Margulis published “The Origin of Mitosing Eukaryotic Cells” in 1966, and generally regarded as a fringe theory until advances gene sequencing and molecular imaging in the 1980s validated her claims. > > Stranger Seems pretty huge re a discovery. Why does[she](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis) not have the Noble Prize for this? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/51 "2009-09-20T22:44:28Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > As I recall, much of the ridicule, from me f’rinstance, came from claims that a prion could remain infectious after complete (not partial) incineration and its reduction to its component oxates etc. It gave a prion an almost-supernatural quality. > > ETA: Creepy proteins? I’m all over them. Ones that can be reduced to carbon dioxide, simple nitrogen compounds, and water and can still replicate? You lost me. From wiki. Prions will _resist_ boiling and cooking but will not survive temps high enough to de-nature them, and these temps are well below “incineration”. > [@](#): > > Sterilization > Infectious particles possessing nucleic acid are dependent upon it to direct their continued replication. Prions, however, are infectious by their effect on normal versions of the protein. Sterilizing prions therefore involves the denaturation of the protein to a state where the molecule is no longer able to induce the abnormal folding of normal proteins. Prions are generally quite resistant to proteases, heat, radiation, and formalin treatments,[36] although their infectivity can be reduced by such treatments. Effective prion decontamination relies upon protein hydrolysis or reduction or destruction of protein tertiary structure. Examples include bleach, caustic soda, and strong acidic detergents such as LpH[37]. 134 degrees Celsius (274 degrees Fahrenheit) for 18 minutes in a pressurised steam autoclave may not be enough to deactivate the agent of disease.[38][39] Ozone sterilization is currently being studied as a potential method for prion denature and deactivation.[40] Renaturation of a completely denatured prion to infectious status has not yet been achieved, however partially denatured prions can be renatured to an infective status under certain artificial conditions.[41] > > The World Health Organization recommends any of the following three procedures for the sterilization of all heat-resistant surgical instruments to ensure that they are not contaminated with prions: > > Immerse in a pan containing 1N NaOH and heat in a gravity-displacement autoclave at 121°C for 30 minutes; clean; rinse in water; and then perform routine sterilization processes. > Immerse in 1N NaOH or sodium hypochlorite (20,000 parts per million available chlorine) for 1 hour; transfer instruments to water; heat in a gravity-displacement autoclave at 121°C for 1 hour; clean; and then perform routine sterilization processes. > Immerse in 1N NaOH or sodium hypochlorite (20,000 parts per million available chlorine) for 1 hour; remove and rinse in water, then transfer to an open pan and heat in a gravity-displacement (121°C) or in a porous-load (134°C) autoclave for 1 hour; clean; and then perform routine sterilization processes.[42] ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/52 "2009-09-20T22:52:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Seems pretty huge re a discovery. Why does she not have the Noble Prize for this? Probably because the discovery that mitochondria developed from independent organisms doesn’t have much direct impact on medicine, and there’s no Nobel prize for biology in general. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698/53 "2009-09-21T02:36:16Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Probably because the discovery that mitochondria developed from independent organisms doesn’t have much direct impact on medicine, and there’s no Nobel prize for biology in general. Yes, the Nobel Prize categories are a bit dated. Biology seems like a good feild. I wonder if they will ever update the categories. With biology as a category, perhaps there would be room for some of the deserving chemistry research that gets pushed out by biochemisty. Most of the biochemistry could go either way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculed-scientific-breakthroughs/510698.md?page=2)