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[mindmetoo]

[Rteacher]

You can never disprove the existence of the soul and God so those core religious beliefs will never change. However, when last polled, 72% of scientists polled declared their core belief in that regard to be atheistic. That materialistic bias pervades the institution of science, which is also not immune to political pressure and corruption. The main reason that I think that there is still some reasonable doubt regarding Apollo 11 is because of the turbulent political climate of that prevailed circa 1969...

[some waygug-in]

Not that this has anything to do with this topic, but science does not seem so eager to change in the face of new evidence. It seems that many in the scientific community are as dogmatic and fanatical about holding to mistaken or out-dated views as their counterparts in the religious community.

http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html



Below is a list of scientists who were reviled for their crackpottery, only to be proved correct. Normal science texts are dishonest to the extent that they hide the huge mistakes made by the scientific community, and the acts of intellectual suppression directed at the following researchers by colleagues.





"When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." - Jonathan Swift


Click on the link above to see the list, there is also a list further down of related websites and discoveries which were ridiculed by the scientific community of their day.

But back to the topic at hand:

http://www.brave.com/bo/lyrics/flymeto.htm

[Rteacher]

Just for the record (in case I mysteriously disappear some day...which would probably be a cause for celebration for the hard-core atheists around here...) "grotto" sent me another of his hate-filled PM's obviously trying to intimidate me from posting any more stuff expressing a spiritual point of view. Personally, I don't think that's acceptable behavior, and the guy should at least be warned to tone down the irrational hate (which he and his hard-core atheist friends usually attribute only to followers of religion and cults...)

[dogbert]

[mindmetoo]

[some waygug-in]

Agreed. But if no one will even look at new claims because they don't fit into the "accepted rules", then we get what we now have......

a lot of good new science being rejected for more or less political or monitary reasons.


"Concepts which have proved useful for ordering things easily assume so great an authority over us, that we forget their terrestrial origin and accept them as unalterable facts. They then become labeled as 'conceptual necessities,' etc. The road of scientific progress is frequently blocked for long periods by such errors." - Einstein

for further reading:

http://amasci.com/tesla/ballsci.txt

http://amasci.com/supress1.html

[mindmetoo]

[some waygug-in]

Who said it was a "conspiracy"?

It is more like a general attitude that seems common when something new arises.

If we look at specific cases we can see this kind of attitude that I'm referring to.

http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html#j32

Warren S. Warren (flaws in MRI theory)
Warren and his team at Princeton tracked down a Magnetic Resonance anomaly and found a new facet to MRI theory: spin interactions between distant molecules, including deterministic Chaos effects. Colleagues knew he was wrong, and warned him that his crazy results were endangering his career. Princeton held a "roast", a mean-spirited bogus presentation mocking his work. Warren then began encountering funding cancellations. After approx. seven years, the tide of ridicule turned and Warren was vindicated. His discoveries are even leading to new MRI techniques. See: SCIENCE NEWS, Jan 20 2001, V159 N3, "spin Control" (cover story)


or another case where even though the scientist's claims were vindicated, most people would think that they are bogus.

Fernando Nottebohm
Mammal brains never grow new neurons after birth? We're given a set number of brain cells, and we can only kill them but not make new ones? After twenty years as a ridiculed minority, Nottebohm's work with songbird brains was finally taken seriously, and the biologists of today now recognize that the age-old dogma was wrong: brains DO regenerate neurons after all. The information has not yet reached most of the biological community, nor the general public.


or this one:

Binning/Roher/Gimzewski (scanning-tunneling microscope)
Invented in 1982, other surface scientists refused to believe that atom-scale resolution was possible, and demonstrations of the STM in 1985 were still met by hostility, shouts, and laughter from the specialists in the microscopy field. Its discoverers won the Nobel prize in 1986, which went far in forcing an unusually rapid change in the attitude of colleagues.


Regarding skepticism:

http://amasci.com/weird/wclose.html

Skepticism is a primary tool of science. We'd be hypocrites if we never directed a skeptical eye towards Scientific Skepticism itself. Denied imperfections and errors are free to grow without limit, and Skepticism is not immune to this problem. Unbridled gullibility can destroy science, but unbridled disbelief is no less a threat because it brings both a tolerance for bias and ridicule as well as the supression of untested new ideas. Better to take a middle road between total closed-mindedness and total gullibility. Practice pragmatism, pursue humility, and maintain a clear, honest, and continuing view of ourselves and the less noble of our own behaviors.

This essay says it so much better than I am able, it's long but worth the read.

http://amasci.com/freenrg/newidea1.html

[mindmetoo]

[some waygug-in]

Yes, but usually a generation or 2 of scientists have to die off before advancements are made. New people with more open minds have to get involved before things change.

[mindmetoo]

[some waygug-in]

You're right. I shouldn't make generalizations about science like that, but there are cases where it seems like my statement would be accurate.

Nicola Tesla is a prime example.

http://amasci.com/supress1.html


Many invaluable concepts for inventions from Edison's era, were not granted financial backing (Milton, 1996). This was the case for most of the ideas of Nikola Tesla, who known for the discovery and development of AC current. In the book, The Coming Energy Revolution, the author, Jeanne Manning (1996), told of how the treatment of Tesla contrasted with that of his contemporary, Edison. Tesla did not bother as Edison did, to "play the game" (p. 24) with the U.S. science establishment, the media and the investors. Manning (1996) continued with explaining that even though Tesla was the main trail-blazer of the age of electricity, his almost inaccessible brilliance, his lack of interest in publishing, and his wish to give everyone free electric power may have caused substantial professional jelousy. Manning (1996) further postulated that this jealousy and Tesla's non-conformity were responsible for the lack of support and acknowledgment he received. Moreover, Manning (1996) continued, even though other inventors were often credited for them, many of the products that came out of the age of electricity were directly due to Tesla's concepts. These were inventions such as Marconi's radio, which was presented to the public in 1901 and used 17 of Tesla's patented ideas. In 1943, the Supreme Court had, in fact, ruled that Tesla was the radio's inventor (Manning,1996). Unfortunately for Tesla, that was some years after his death. After the US science community and investors turned their back on Tesla, he descended "into wild eccentricity"(p. 26). However, Manning (1996) asserted, his research on wireless power conveyance, bladeless turbines, excess-output energy machines and other futuristic devices are still being marveled at and studied by those that have rediscovered this unappreciated genius.


There are many cases where the public perception of what science is and its history are just plain wrong.

http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thompson1/History/forgotten.htm

Did Einstein discover E=mc2?
Well, no! I received the following from Theo Theocharis, August 23, 2000, and relayed it to APS News on his request:

In the APS News, Vol. 9, No. 8, August/September 2000, p. 2, the "This Month in Physics History" column was entitled "September 1905: Einstein's Most Famous Formula", and it stated:

"But it was later that year [1905], in a paper received by the Annalen der Physik on September 27, applying his equations to study the motion of a body, that Einstein showed that mass and energy were equivalent, a startling new insight he expressed in a simple formula that became synonymous with his name: E=mc2. However, full confirmation of his theory was slow in coming. It was not until 1933, in Paris, when Ir�ne and Fr�d�ric Joliot-Curie took a photograph showing the conversion of energy into mass."

The "100 YEARS AGO" item in the 6 April 2000 issue of Nature (Vol. 404, p. 553) is taken from the 5 April 1900 issue of Nature (note the dates), and it states:

"The calculations of M. Henri Becquerel show that this energy is of the order of one ten-millionth of a watt per second. Hence a loss of weight of about a milligram in a thousand million years would suffice to account for the observed effects, assuming the energy of the radiation to be derived from the actual loss of material."

The assumption that accounts for the stated (in the 5 April 1900 issue of Nature) figures is E=mc2. But according to APS News, this is "Einstein's most famous formula" which in September 1905 was "a startling new insight".

I think that there is a problem that ought to be resolved.




http://amasci.com/supress1.html

Some reactions to new discoveries or inventions from the scientific community:


"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." -Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology France, 1872 (p.30)

"Fooling around with alternating current in just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever." -Thomas Edison, 1889 (p.207)


"I laughed till. . . my sides were sore." -Adam Sedgwick, British geologist in a letter to Darwin in regards to his theory of evolution, 1857 (p.9)


"If the whole of the English language could be condensed into one word, it would not suffice to express the utter contempt those invite who are so deluded as to be disciples of such an imposture as Darwinism." -Francis Orpen Morris, British ornithologist 1877 (p.10)


"Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value." - Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre (p.245)


"To affirm that the aeroplane is going to 'revolutionize' naval warfare of the future is to be guilty of the wildest exaggeration." -Scientific American, 1910 (p.246)


"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers Studios, 1927 (p.72)


"The whole procedure of shooting rockets into space. . . presents difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss the notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author's insistent appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed impossibility of heavier-than-air flight before it was actually accomplished." -Richard van der Riet Wooley, British astronomer (p.257)


"The energy produced by the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine." Ernst Rutherford, 1933 (p.215)


"Space travel is bunk" - Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of Britain, 1957, two weeks before the launch of Sputnik (p.258)


"But what hell is it good for?" -Engineer Robert Lloyd, IBM 1968, commenting on the microchip (p.209)


"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -Ken Olson, president of Digital Equipment Corp. 1977 (p.209)

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