How many times has the scientific consensus on a major issue been wrong? In the last 500 years of the scientific revolution has there actually been paradigm shifts? I am referring only to the hard sciences here of Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry and I’ll throw in Biology.

Christian fundamentalists and creationists among other religionists as well, often think and claim that Science is wrong, on certain issues. Global warming would be a current example, as well as, of course everybody’s favorite, Evolution.

But, how many times has the major Scientific consensus, once arrived at, actually been wrong? And I don’t mean premature or incomplete and reported as fact, but re-evaluated and completely overthrown established science.

It’s stunning to me that modern humans continue to accept facts of the universe solely on faith, and then claim the empirical methods are wrong, and the consensus among experts in scientific study either does not exist or is also wrong.

Should Science tout it’s track record? Will the believers even listen if it does?

That’s a great question that deserves research. I am personally not aware of such a thing, but I have not done any research on it myself. Google time!

Science has a convergent unity for precisely the same reasons that religions splinter, schism, feud and mutually excommunicate.

Scientific knowledge is cumulative and accepted theories are always open to revision as new knowledge comes in. I mean, Newton’s laws still work and are still relevant and used in most situations. Einstein went further than Newton and created a new theory of gravity that accounted for small deviations that were observed when attempts were made to apply Newton’s theory over vast distances and times. This is how science advances and our store of useful knowledge expands.

Religion on the other hand is not about developing real, useful knowledge but about man-made dogmas that are supposed to be definitive and unchangeable. Even though it is obviously made up, religion suits certain insecure people who can’t cope with uncertainty and who need to be told how to think and live. These people are so insecure that they’ll even jettison reality as revealed by science if it undermines their dogma. What is important to such people is not the advancement of knowledge but psychological comfort. Religions offer this in return for money, power and control.

There can never be a meeting of science and religion. They are fundamentally incompatible. Scientific consensus is only relevant to such people as some sort of evidence that scientists can’t agree and so can’t arrive at real knowledge. But the fact is that science advances. Religion squirms and protests. As Thomas Jefferson said, “They dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subdivision of the duperies on which they live.”

To hell with religion!

All I know is that I am really glad that I didn’t live in the days of bloodletting.

Law vs. science:  while the forefathers of physicians were bleeding people with leaches and the forefathers of scientists were trying to turn lead into gold, my forefathers were writing the Magna Carta.

Did the germ theory of disease contradict and replace a previous scientific theory of human pathologies, or just superstitious beliefs?

ecurb: Law vs. science:  while the forefathers of physicians were bleeding people with leaches and the forefathers of scientists were trying to turn lead into gold, my forefathers were writing the Magna Carta.

You’re lucky, my forefathers were stealing land from the Indians and siding with the British in the Revolutionary War.  My grandfather was in the KKK.  He didn’t hate niggers; he hated Papists (also known as “bead-mumblers”) Well, he also hated niggers, but that was only a side issue.  Actually, he hated everyone swarthy.  To pay for his sins, I married the swarthiest Italian I could find.

Fortunately, my mother’s side was a lot cooler.  That’s why I have the Walt Whitman genes to brag about. I’m glad…I need them.

Phlogiston.

Protoplasm.

Epaminondas - 17 August 2012 06:32 AM

How many times has the scientific consensus on a major issue been wrong? In the last 500 years of the scientific revolution has there actually been paradigm shifts? I am referring only to the hard sciences here of Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry and I’ll throw in Biology.

I don’t know. What does Kuhn say about this question?

Once a field of study accumulates enough edited data for it to be labeled as a science, it presumably contains enough validity to become something not to be overthrown or completely wiped out, but revolutions can take place within any science. Computer science has seen one revolution after another.

Soft sciences undergo revolutions all the time. Chemistry, physics and biology as we know them could certainly become absorbed into future science approaches. All they do is to accurately describe things that are important to people or that fascinate us, so any science can be reworded and become more precise as new information is acquired and new ways of expressing them occur to people.