Scientists 'back then' were not scientists?

Question

The questioner at the link below asked about scientists asserting the world was flat. Naturally, answerers asserted, those weren't 'real' scientists. [The way Jim Jones wasn't a 'real' Christian]

Okay. Only a few months before Kitty Hawk the leading not-yet-scientists were declaring heavier-than-air flight to be impossible.

How is it, scientists are only wrong in retrospect? How is it they're always right, this moment?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070808075122AAGbCv2&r=w&pa=FZptHWf.BGRX3OFMiTJQWD7ia6.GB0wis4Kz6YUwP6jSf34mwg--&paid=answered#RJgvLHDZIGtK42y9zXe.

Answer 1

Good question. And I would like to ask them, "then why theory?" Everything is reality to them as if they alone only knew facts. Theory is not facts.

Answer 2

I'm not sure when "back then" was. Western intellectuals have known since the time of the Greeks that the earth was round. There have been natural philosophers for millennia. There have been educated, observant people. But scientists are relatively modern things. Scientists are those who apply the scientific method and that's only been around for a few hundred years. Elements of it, of course, have always existed. But consciously, methodically following the scientific method's only a relatively recent activity.

Now certainly not every scientist in the days before Kitty Hawk said that heavier than air flight is impossible. In fact, the most famous scientist to do so was Lord Kelvin. He was a genius in his own area, but made some noted blunders otherwise. Amusingly, it is one of those blunders that is often cited by Creationists since Kelvin agreed that the earth is young, not old.

Scientists now are wrong about a number of their conclusions. Anyone who knows science will tell you that. But when a theory has been around for over a hundred years and has been tested and re-tested and constantly challenged over that period, it's not going to be far off the mark. Individual facts will change as we learn more. But the more an idea in science has been put to the test and the more it has shown itself to be an excellent predictive model, the more you can rely on it.
Newton's physics turned out to be incomplete. We know our current physics is incomplete. But just as Newton's still close enough for the vast majority of uses because of its substantial accuracy we can rely on most of the conclusions of modern science.

Answer 3

Unlike religion, science is not a dogma. Science is a method of investigating reality. Because it is a process of investigation, truth in science is always provisional. It is the best method man has yet developed to get at the truth.

Additionally, the word "scientist" is less than 150 years old. Before then people who were involved in what we consider to be scientific investigation were called "natural philosophers" or "savants" or other such terms.

And as far as scientists and the flight at Kitty Hawk, my Scientific American last year cited a Scientific American article published 100 years ago before the first powered flight; it seems as though scientists were indeed anticipating the development of powered flight well before the Wright Bros invented their machine.

Answer 4

Scientists did not declare the world to be flat, the Church did at times due to scripture. Scholars have known it to be a sphere since the days of the ancient Greeks.

Scientists never declared heavier than air flight to be impossible, because they knew that birds accomplish it. Some engineers felt it was beyond our capabilities at the time of the Wright Brothers.

You would do better studying actual history rather than folklore.

Answer 5

What is so difficult to comprehend when I say "Scientists WERE wrong but NOW, collectively, we are correct."

I just know you're trying to turn this round to mean "Hey, this means that scientists could be wrong now" Seriously, what evidence was there that the Earth was flat? Not much, it's more of an assumption. And I think you'd be going a bit too far to say that there was a scientific community back then that had as many critical members as it has today.

Answer 6

Do you even want the real answer? Clearly you know nothing about science, given the framing of your question, and from your all too apparent bias, we can tell what you're trying to do. As others have mentioned, science is not stagnant. Every time we learn something new, we question it, and if it proves to be the best fit to the observations that we made, we question other things that relate to it, and keep questioning that new nugget of knowledge itself. And, here's the kicker, if we were wrong, then or now, _we_admit_it_. Can any religion say the same thing?

Answer 7

From Dec 1903 - Sept 1908, the Wright Brothers were experimenting with and were actually 'Flying' out of a field that was loaned to them by the Dayton banks President which was border by two major roadways and a railway line.

Scores of people wrote to the local newspapers after having viewed them from the roads and the passing trains. The wrote asking for information as to just what was going on there? And in spite of affidavits and many demonstrations of the flying, not one newspaper bothered to send a reporter to simply 'look-see.'

And to settle the hash of ‘these fools,’ the Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at John Hopkins University, published an article to demonstrate scientifically that human flight was 'utterly impossible.'

A Rear Admiral and Chief Engineer of the US Navy, one George Melville, wrote and article stating that 'attempting to fly was an absurdity.' Testimonies in the prestigious Scientific America publication simply 'scoffed at the Wright's as hoaxers.'

One evening in January 1926, 40+ eminent members of the August British scientific body, the Royal Society, accompanied a number of newspaper reporters to witness John Logie Baird hold his first major demonstration of a practical Television system.

Having witnessed the demonstration, the conclusions seem to have ranged around the 'hoax' and 'swindler' end of the spectrum of thought, and which was expressed as such. And the culmination of it was, 'What good is it when you've got it? What useful purpose could it possibly serve?'

[ Well, if Big Brother is anything to go by - they were Right-On ]

Back then -- and my point is -- that Scientists were, on the whole, eminent people who often held a ‘lofty position in Society.' And when they spoke, the spoke with an ‘Authority’ which projected their words more as a 'Proclamation' than anything else. This was largely, I believe, because their lofty position held vested interests, and they were vulnerable within Society should they fall ~ and hence their desire to not fall (though they seemingly failed to find themselves safety nets).

Today, scientists are far from being ‘thin on the ground,’ and that in itself can lead to all kinds of conflicts which likely resolve nothing, but instead possibly create their own spin-offs (as happens within religions).

My grandfather was knowledgeable and intuative about horse ~ taking care of them, doctoring them, blacksmithing, horse harness’s and their making - with an expertise working with and using leather which he repaired.

He drove horse drawn vans for the Railways all over London and could find his way easily in pea-thick soup-fog. He was an expert, like a scientist ~ but within limited fields. And as I understand it, that is often a problem with scientists and certainly within other fields ~ such as medicine.

It, the whole subject, is a sonsuming condumdrum.

Sash.

Answer 8

Actually itsn't science to create a map but a topologist (map maker). Since maps only revealed what was explored it could all fit on a piece of paper that was flat ... thus, it was concluded that the world was flat. Especially since when you walk/ sail, the surface is flat.

Politically, then it would embarrase the topologist if they biffed it ... so that's why it was held on though Gallelo.

Answer 9

Science is never finished, scientists don't claim to be right even now, and back then theory's were made by philosophers so its a little different

Answer 10

Scientists are only people that try to find the answers and they have theories and they conduct research. Scientists learn from trial and error.

Answer 11

Science is not stagnant. It is always changing as new things are discovered, new methods of observation are devised, ect. There is still so much out there that we don't know, but more is being discovered on a daily basis.