9 Most Enduring Scientific Theories That Turned Out to be Erroneous
9 Most Enduring Scientific Theories That Turned Out to be Erroneous
We are used to trusting scientists. We refer to them when we want to give more weight to our own words, quote them, attract them as experts. But they are just people and can also be wrong. Even the great ones.
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| 9 Most Enduring Scientific Theories That Turned Out to be Erroneous |
1. Alchemy
In the Middle Ages, the idea of turning lead into gold did not seem as crazy as it is today. And this is easily explained. The first experiments in the field of chemistry were more than promising - substances mixed in a certain way changed color, sparkled, exploded, disappeared, grew, shrank, exuded unusual odors ...
The conclusion suggests itself - why not the dull gray metal become shining yellow? So the search began for a reagent capable of making such a transformation - the mythical “philosophical stone”. In parallel, there was a search for the "elixir of life", which also remained a dream.
2. Phlogiston
Phlogiston is such a “fiery substance” that Johann Becher “discovered” in 1667. The scientist believed that this substance is contained in all combustible substances and volatilizes when burned.
Many scientists bought into Becher's advices and tried with the theory of phlogiston to explain some of the phenomena associated with fire and burning. For example, they believed that the flame went out when all the phlogiston is released; that air is necessary for combustion because it absorbs phlogiston; and we breathe in order to rid the body of the same phlogiston.
The phlogiston theory lasted until the end of the 18th century, until an oxygen theory of combustion emerged.
3. “Rain follows the plow”
Now it seems unbelievable, but once upon a time a theory was very popular among Americans and Australians, according to which if you cultivate the land quite hard and for a long time, it will certainly rain.
This idea was not questioned, because ... it was confirmed. No, of course, the plow did not cause any rain. However, in some regions (such as the American West, for example), long periods of drought are certainly followed by rainy seasons. And if you walk a field with a plow for a long, long time, then sooner or later cycles change.
4. Earth is only 6,000 years old
Once upon a time, the historical authenticity of the events described in the Bible was not in doubt, despite some inconsistencies.
Take, for example, the age of the planet. In the 17th century, an Irish archbishop planned, based on biblical chronology, that the Earth was created in 4004 before Christ. His findings have been recognized by official science for nearly 200 years.
And modern intentions based on radiological dating make it possible to determine the age of the planet somewhat more accurately. And according to these data, our planet is no less than 4.5 billion years old.
5. Atom - the smallest of existing particles
The idea that matter consists of small particles (atoms) has been familiar to mankind for at least a thousand years, but that something even smaller exists, scientists began to guess only in the 20th century: Thompson discovered an electron, Chadwick - a neutron, Rutherford created a planetary model of the atom ... Since then, we have come a long way, which culminated in the discovery of the Higgs boson.
6. DNA at first did not attach much importance
However, for a long time no one attached great importance to nucleic acids. Scientists considered proteins to be the material transmitting hereditary information - it seemed to them that DNA was too simple for such work. And only in 1953, American biochemists Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA and explained to the rest of the world how exactly a simple molecule manages to cope with such a difficult task.
7. Microbes and surgery
Till the end of the 19th century, no stuff how wild it sounds, doctors did not see the need to wash their hands before taking on a scalpel. The result is continuous gangrene. Contamination was usually attributed to “bad air” and the disease was answerable for the imbalance of the “four body fluids” (blood, mucus, black and yellow bile).
In the scientific world, the revolutionary theory that microbes can be the cause of the disease has long been simply ignored. And only in the 1860s, when the French microbiologist Louis Pasteur got down to business, she began to slowly gain the attention of doctors. And then doctors like Joseph Lister finally convinced their colleagues of the need to wash their wounds and sterilize surgical instruments.
8. Earth - the center of the universe
In the second century, the famous astronomer Ptolemy built a model of the solar system, in the center of which the Earth was located. This model was considered an absolute and unshakable truth for the entire Western Christian world right up to the 15th century, until it was supplanted by the heliocentric (that is, in the center of which the Sun is located) system of the Polish astronomer Nikolai Copernicus.
Copernicus was not the first to come up with the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but he was the first to be listened to.
9. The circulatory system
We all know how important the heart is - you don’t need to be a doctor. But in ancient Rome, even doctors thought differently.
The well-known doctor Claudius Galen (130-200 BC) was persuaded that blood is formed in the liver as a result of the combination of digested food with air. Then, through the veins, portions of blood (each time new) go to the heart, and from it through the arteries spread throughout the body. Organs use blood as fuel.
Galen's theory was not in doubt until 1628, until the English physician William Harvey published his work, entitled “Anatomical Study of the Movement of the Heart and Blood in Animals,” which proved that blood returns to the heart in a closed cycle.
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