Hello. I just read a prediction that an asteriod will hit the earth in 2019.
I was just wondering about well known scientific predictions that have never come true.
Know any off the top of your head?
I don’t like the tone of the OP, and I’m not even a scientist. Look, obviously there have been all sorts of scientific theories, speculations and even a few foolhardy predictions that haven’t proven true.
But while, OCCASIONALLY, it’s tempting to use those errors to scoff at science or to dismiss everyone who raises scientific concerns as an alarmist Cassandra, that would be adangerous mistake. And even if I gave you a set of funny anecdotes proving that brilliant scientists have some up with some utterly wrong-headed theories in the past, that should NOT be of much comfort if and when a respect latter day scientist tells you something terrible may happen.
When I was in high school, scientists regularly talked about a new Ice Age, which generated a lot of media hype. Today, almost all the scientific talk goes the other way, with ballyhooed predictions of global warming.
Does that mean the scientists who worried about global cooling were idiots? NO! Of course not. And does it mean we can safely dismiss concerns about global warning? Again, no- it’s silly and, again, dangerous, to smirk, “Oh, those scientists are always predicting some disaster or other. Ignore them.”
Now, I haven’t seen any “predictions” that an asteroid is going to hit Earth. I HAVE seen numerous reports that currently far-off asteroids are probably going to pass very close to the Earth. Mind you, a layman’s idea of “very close” and an astronomer’s are very different. Given the sheer size of space, an asteroid that passes within 50,000 miles of Earth looks like a near-miss to an astronomer.
But even if there’s no clear consensus among astronomers that any one, known asteroid is going to hit Earth on some given day, the fact remains that asteroids and comets are common, they pass through our galaxy regularly, and over the long run (and an astronomer’s “long run” is a lot longer than yours or mine!), it’s almost a certainty that one of them will eventually hit the Earth.
That said, am I lying awake at night worrying about it? Nah.
The Earth is flat
Unless you’ve got a more up to date source than I do, the asteroid might hit the earth. NY Times says it’s about a 1/200,000 shot.
At least as far as scientific predictions of events in our solar system, I don’t believe any astronomer would claim to tell you any more than a probability of the event occurring - at least not for something more than a few years from now. We can narrow down the positions an asteroid will be in 17 years from now. Part of that depends on getting a more precise notion of where the asteroid is now. Sometimes the rock also has to be watched for a while to see what it’s trajectory really is (not the case this time, as I understand it - the asteroid’s trajectory is pretty well mapped).
And then time matters, too. Orbits get changed slightly because of interference from other objects. A little change now makes a big difference later. And the longer you’ve got, the more opportunities there are for something to change the rock’s orbit. So for an event happening 17 years from now, I don’t think you can predict anything.
The best you can say is: Give me 200,000 asteroids that we know exactly the same data about, and I can expect that one will slug the earth.
>> Hello. I just read a prediction that an asteriod will hit the earth in 2019
No you didn’t.
Actually, even if you have 200,000 asteroids like this one, you’d still only have about a 63% chance that at least one would hit the Earth. To have a 95% chance of there being one or more collisions you’d need about 600,000.
I remember in the 70s being told that due to man-made pollutants, the earth was cooling. I wish I had kept the articles!
The Planet Vulcan might be another example. Based on what we knew about gravitation before the 20th century, the existence of a tenth planet (Vulcan), very close to the sun, was one of the only reasonable explanations for the precession of Mercury’s orbit. Many astronomers spent many hours searching for it.
Then Einstein came along. His theory of Relativity (General or Special?) treated the nature of gravitation slightly differently than Newton’s theories had, but the difference was enough to explain Mercury’s orbit without the existence of another planet.
Don’t take it so seriously, guys. I’m a disc jockey, and I just wanted to do a bit involving scientific predictions that never came true. I’m not trying to scoff in the face of science, just trying to do a bit. Just wanting some anecdotes.
The Martian Canals.
Kahotech (Sp?)comet. Sure it came and was interesting but not nearly as visable as they said it would be. They said you’d be able to see it in the daylight.
What did Snowdog do or say to provoke the usually calm and intelligent astorian and sailor? Jeepers.
Up until it was unofficially disproved by a test in 1907 that was supposed to prove its existence every scientist worth his salt believed the universe was filled with a substance called Ether (for many reasons but mainly because Aristotle said so).
To all the pro-sci’s: no need to get so defensive here. No matter how many incorrect predictions scientists have made over the years, and there are plenty, they still don’t hold a candle to religion in scope or believed impact.
Most scientific predictions are wrong in one way or another. That’s the point of science–you make a bunch of educated guesses, and then intentionally try to poke holes in them. Because science is so thorough, most of its predictions are proven faulty sooner or later, to some degree or another.
One thing that divides scientists from non-scientists is that most non-scientists believe that science is supposed to be perfect and infallable, while all scientists know it can’t and shouldn’t be perfect and infallable. Being wrong is the only way science advances.
What seems like a pretty straightforward–and nonthreatening–question seems to have been treated as some kind of challenge or indictment of science in general.
Some examples of mistaken predictions of a scientific nature which come readily to mind:
Until improvements were made in steamship engine design, it was calculated that no steamship could ever cross the Atlantic; it was figured that it would always require more coal for the trip than the ship could haul.
The eminent French astronomer Flammarion was the first to analyze the spectrum of light given off by the tail of Haley’s comet. Finding that it contained poisonous gasses, and being unable to appreciate how very, very little of this would ever enter the atmosphere, he opined that the comet would bring widespread death when it neared the Earth in 1910.
A learned article was published demonstrating that there could only be eight planets in the solar system within a month of the discovery of Pluto.
Neil Armstrong said that the main thing on his mind when he walked down the steps of the Apollo 11 was that some scientists had predicted he would sink into the gravel once he set foot on the moon.
In the 1950s officials at Univac predicted that there would be a worldwide market for about five computers.
While perhaps not to be classified as a prediction, astronomer Percival Lowell wrote reams about the canals of Mars, their origin, placement and significance. None of these canals existed; they only appeared to be there when one looked at a hazy image of the planet about the size of a dime while squinting through an observatory telescope.
The American doctor who made a controversial claim of having first identified the HIV virus (his name escapes me; he’s the fellow Alan Alda played in The Band Played On) said with assurance back in the early 80s that there would be an AIDS vaccine within a couple of years.
Various economists in the 60s predicted the collapse of the world economy by now due to overpopulation. (One crucial error is said to have been failing to account for improvements in agriculture that have since taken place).
A Russian economist named Kondratiev (spelling?) predicted that there would be a worldwide depression starting on or around January, 1980, signalled by a major stock market crash. While nothing of the kind happened, it is impressive that he made his prediction around 1920, when he also predicted, as part of the same cyclic theory he had developed, that there would be a major stock market crash and the start of a worldwide depression around January, 1930.
Iben Browning claimed he had developed a method for forecasting earthquakes, and said there was a 50% chance of one along the New Madrid Fault in Missouri and southern Illinois on a particular date back in the early 90s. Browning was an eminent figure in the development of the computer, but the consensus now seems to be that his self-taught geology was a crock. Actually, though, as he said there was a 50% chance of an earthquake, and nothing whatever happened that day, it could be argued that he was exactly right.
None of this, of course, is a slam at science per se. Often scientists were only saying what they thought was probable given the available information, and not speaking with assurance as to what they believed would certainly happen. Moreover, it was generally science which refuted them when the time came.
There’s the classic “fusion power is just 10 years away” prediction that has stayed 10 years away for about 50 years.
The problem I have is that many of those predictions were never supported by mainstream science, they are just something someone blurted out and who was not trying to make any scientific prediction. And many are blurbs which were never even said that way. Witness the OP “I just read a prediction that an asteriod will hit the earth in 2019” when in fact there is no such prediction. In a few years people will laugh and say “remember when they predicted an asteroid would hit the earth?” And they will remember it.
A doctor saying he believes it may take a couple of years to develop a vaccine is hardly a scientific prediction. It is his own assessment which even he would not call a hard and fast prediction and which many of his collegues would disagree with.
I have have some difficulty with the concept of “science being wrong” because science is always open to being questioned. Individual scientists are sometimes wrong, sometimes the sceintific community is divided and one side is wrong but I would say it would be a very rare event that the entire sceintific community were proven wrong in a major way. I mean not in a way that meant expanding and enlarging what was known but rather that it meant the total disproof of something.
Science as a whole is always open to the possibility that a better explanation for things may come along. Science does not claim infallibility and, in that sense, is not wrong because it is open to new evidence and better explanations. You will not hear scientists say they predict something with infallible certainty because they leave that to religion.
A piece based on “let’s have a laugh on account of how silly we can make scientists look is a bad idea”. We have enough ignorance around and there’s no need to make some ignorant people feel better about themselves for being ignorant. The religious fundies already do enough of this and there’s no need for more.
On this board I would much more favor a piece on how ignorant news reporters are and how they report scientific and other news in such crappy way as to be useless. We continually see here news reports of miracle energy sources and such things.
More useful would be to explain what science is, how it works, how it does not claim infallibility, how it is always open to question and disproof. How it has contributed to the development of technology and improved our lives. And how a few ignorant yahoos who do not understand it keep putting it down on religious grounds. Science has given us better health care, electronics, computers, cars, TVs. . . it has improved our lives in countless ways.
More specifically, I recall those two groups of academics arguing over who invented “cold fusion”. A low moment for science.
Here you go.
All wrapped up in a very neat and funny package.
Not a very good one or one with any real authority unless he happens to be very influential person, but a prediction nonetheless. Sometimes prediction is an individual effort. Einstein predicted The Deflection of Light by the Sun’s Gravitational Field 10 years before a total eclipse enabled him to verify his theory. But, Einstein is the rare example of a scientist with an exceptional track record. I agree with **Wumpus **. I think science advances by both breaking new ground and discarding unproven hypotheses.
Religion, on the other hand, has the burden of always being right as evident in the current Catholic clergy scandal. Even a scientific law, the most rigid of scientific predictions is based on observation. If enough people observe a law of science not doing what it’s supposed to be doing its no longer a law.
I mentioned Ether, but others include the atomic structure, the speed of light, the size, shape, location, and orbital paths of the planets, the existence of microscopic organisms and many more. It could be a thread unto itself.
I doesn’t have to be that kind of thread if we don’t let it. Certainly not all, but many scientific predictions that were proven wrong were based on sound reasoning using the best observation possible at the time, Science’s strong point is its ability to continually expand, and improve. Religion thinks it got everything right on the first try few tries, science is still looking for its definitive answer.
As a phenomenon of human civilization science has been a remarkable mutatagen, every now and again science is applied in a technology that alters the path of humanity; agriculture, mechanization, and digitalization being the most significant. What a trip it would be if any of us live to see the next big thing.
**
Do we want to stoop to the level of a fundie. The problem with religious fundamentalists is that they are abhorrent of criticism, even constructive suggestions like sweeping widespread child molestation under the carpet is an ungodly thing to do. Anyone who chooses the scientific method over religion or at least takes them both for their strengths and weaknesses should welcome criticism.
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
- Alan Kay
“A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation.”
-Max Gluckman
Not to be an ass but… let see the math please. 