I have a theory that I due to my outward pyhsical appearance, I may be a "YETI". However, others seem to think I am the result of genetic mutation, resulting in me being nothing more than a really good looking Albino mountain gorilla. I still think I can prove my theory.
While doing some research, I came across this list of 10 theories
that were at one time considered fact by some and how they were proven
wrong later. I wonder what other theories will be proven wrong by the
end of this year? Let’s look at the list which is in descending order
from 10-1 and then a few other theories that will be joining this list
very soon.
10. The Discovery of Vulcan
Vulcan
was a planet that nineteenth century scientists believed to exist
somewhere between Mercury and the Sun. The mathematician Urbain Jean
Joseph Le Verrier first proposed its existence after he and many other
scientists were unable to explain certain peculiarities about Mercury’s
orbit. Scientists like Le Verrier argued that this had to be caused by
some object, like a small planet or moon, acting as a gravitational
force. La Verrier called his hypothetical planet Vulcan, after the Roman
god of fire. Soon, amateur astronomers around Europe, eager to be a
part of a scientific discovery, contacted Le Verrier and claimed to have
witnessed the mysterious planet making its transit around the Sun. For
years afterward, Vulcan sightings continued to pour in from around the
globe, and when La Verrier died in 1877, he was still regarded as having
discovered a new planet in the solar system.
How it was Proven Wrong:
Without
La Verrier acting as a cheerleader for Vulcan’s existence, it suddenly
began to be doubted by many notable astronomers. The search was
effectively abandoned in 1915, after Einstein’s theory of general
relativity helped to explain once and for all why Mercury orbited the
Sun in such a strange fashion. But amateur stargazers continued the
search, and as recently as 1970 there have been people who have claimed
to see a strange object orbiting the sun beyond Mercury. Amusingly, the
entire would-be discovery’s greatest legacy today is that it inspired
the name of the home planet of the character Spock from Star Trek.
9. Spontaneous Generation
Although
it might seem a bit ludicrous today, for thousands of years it was
believed that life regularly arose from the elements without first being
formed through a seed, egg, or other traditional means of reproduction.
The main purveyor of the theory was Aristotle, who based his studies on
the ideas of thinkers like Anaximander, Hippolytus, and Anaxagoras, all
of whom stressed the ways in which life could spontaneously come into
being from inanimate matter like slime, mud, and earth when exposed to
sunlight. Aristotle based his own ideas on the observation of the ways
maggots would seemingly generate out of dead animal carcass, or
barnacles would form on the hull of a boat. This theory that life could
literally spring from nothing managed to persist for hundreds of years
after Aristotle, and was even being proposed by some scientists as
recently as the 1700s.
How it was Proven Wrong:
It was only with the adoption of the scientific method that many of the
classical theories like spontaneous generation began to be tested. Once
they were, they quickly crumbled. For example, famed scientist Louis
Pasteur showed that maggots would not appear on meat kept in a sealed
container, and the invention of the microscope helped to show that these
same insects were formed not by spontaneous generation but by airborne
microorganisms.
8. The Expanding Earth
Our
modern understanding of the interior and behaviors of the Earth is
strongly based around plate tectonics and the concept of subduction. But
before this idea was widely accepted in the late 20th century, a good
number of scientists subscribed to the much more fantastical theory that
the Earth was forever increasing in volume. The expanding Earth
hypothesis stated that phenomena like underwater mountain ranges and
continental drift could be explained by the fact that the planet was
gradually growing larger. As the globe’s size grew, proponents argued,
the distances between continents would increase, as would the Earth’s
crust, which would have explained the creation of new mountains. The
theory has a long and storied past, beginning with Darwin, who briefly
tinkered with it before casting it aside, and Nikola Tesla, who compared
the process to that of the expansion of a dying star.
How it was Proven Wrong:
The
expanding Earth hypothesis has never been proven wrong exactly, but it
has been widely replaced with the much more sophisticated theory of
plate tectonics. While the expanding Earth theory holds that all land
masses were once connected, and that oceans and mountains were only
created as a result of the planet’s growing volume, plate tectonics
explains the same phenomena by way of plates in the lithosphere that
move and converge beneath the Earth’s surface.
7. Phlogiston Theory
First expressed by Johan Joachim Becher in 1667, phlogiston theory is
the idea that all combustible objects—that is, anything that can catch
fire—contain a special element called phlogiston that is released during
burning, and which makes the whole process possible. In its traditional
form, phlogiston was said to be without color, taste, or odor, and was
only made visible when a flammable object, like a tree or a pile of
leaves, caught fire. Once it was burned and all its phlogiston released,
the object was said to once again exist in its true form, known as a
“calx.” Beyond basic combustion, the theory also sought to explain
chemical processes like the rusting of metals, and was even used as a
means of understanding breathing, as pure oxygen was described as
“dephlogistated air.”
How it was Proven Wrong:
The
more experiments that were performed using the phlogiston model, the
more dubious it became as a theory. One of the most significant was that
when certain metals were burned, they actually gained weight instead of
losing it, as they should have if phlogiston were being released. The
idea eventually fell out of favor, and has since been replaced by more
sophisticated theories, like oxidation.
6. The Martian Canals
The
Martian canals were a network of gullies and ravines that 19th century
scientist mistakenly believed to exist on the red planet. The canals
were first “discovered” in 1877 by Italian astronomer Giovanni
Schiaparelli. After other stargazers corroborated his claim, the canals
became something of a phenomenon. Scientists drew detailed maps tracing
their paths, and soon wild speculation began on their possible origins
and use. Perhaps the most absurd theory came from Percival Lowell, a
mathematician and astronomer who jumped to the bizarre conclusion that
the canals were a sophisticated irrigation system developed by an
unknown intelligent species. Lowell’s hypothesis was widely discredited
by other scientists, but it was also popularly accepted, and the idea
managed to survive in some circles well into the 20th century.
How it was Proven Wrong:
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Quite unspectacularly, the Martian canals were only proven to be a myth
with the advent of greater telescopes and imaging technology. It turned
out that what looked like canals was in fact an optical illusion caused
by streaks of dust blown across the Martian surface by heavy winds.
Several scientists had proposed a similar theory in the early 1900s, but
it was only proven correct in the 1960s when the first unmanned
spacecraft made flybys over Mars and took pictures of its surface.
5. Luminiferous Aether
The
aether, also known as the ether, was a mysterious substance that was
long believed to be the means through which light was transmitted
through the universe. Philosophers as far back as the Greeks had
believed that light required a delivery system, a means through which it
became visible, and this idea managed to persist all the way through to
the nineteenth century. If correct, the theory would have redefined our
entire understanding of physics. Most notably, if the aether were a
physical substance that could exist even in a vacuum, then even deep
space could be more easily measured and quantified. Experiments often
contradicted the theory of the aether, but by the 1700s it had become so
widespread that its existence was assumed to be a given. Later, when
the idea was abandoned, physicist Albert Michelson referred to
luminiferous aether as “one of the grandest generalizations in modern
science.”
How it was Proven Wrong:
In
traditional scientific fashion, the notion of a luminiferous aether was
only gradually phased out as more sophisticated theories came into play.
Experiments in the diffraction and refraction of light had long
rendered traditional models of the aether outdated, but it was only when
Einstein’s special theory of relativity came along and completely
reconfigured physics that the idea lost the last of its major adherents.
The theory still exists in various forms, though, and many have argued
that modern scientists simply use terms like “fields” and “fabric” in
place of the more taboo term “aether.”
4. The Blank Slate Theory
One
of the oldest and most controversial theories in psychology and
philosophy is the theory of the blank slate, or tabula rasa, which
argues that people are born with no built-in personality traits or
proclivities. Proponents of the theory, which began with the work of
Aristotle and was expressed by everyone from St. Thomas Aquinas to the
empiricist philosopher John Locke, insisted that all mental content was
the result of experience and education. For these thinkers, nothing was
instinct or the result of nature. The idea found its most famous
expression in psychology in the ideas of Sigmund Freud, whose theories
of the unconscious stressed that the elemental aspects of an
individual’s personality were constructed by their earliest childhood
experiences.
How it was Proven Wrong:
While
there’s little doubt that a person’s experiences and learned behaviors
have a huge impact on their disposition, it is also now widely accepted
that genes and other family traits inherited from birth, along with
certain innate instincts, also play a crucial role. This was only proven
after years of study that covered the ways in which similar gestures
like smiling and certain features of language could be found throughout
the world in radically different cultures. Meanwhile, studies of adopted
children and twins raised in separate families have come to similar
conclusions about the ways certain traits can exist from birth.
3. Phrenology
Although
it is now regarded as nothing more than a pseudoscience, in its day
phrenology was one of the most popular and well-studied branches of
neuroscience. In short, proponents of phrenology believed that
individual character traits, whether intelligence, aggression, or an ear
for music, could all be localized to very specific parts of the brain.
According to phrenologists, the larger each one of these parts of a
person’s brain was, the more likely they were to behave in a certain
way. With this in mind, practitioners would often study the size and
shape of subjects’ heads in order to determine what kind of personality
they might have. Detailed maps of the supposed 27 different areas of the
brain were created, and a person who had a particularly large bump on
their skull in the area for, say, the sense of colors, would be assumed
to have a proclivity for painting.
How it was Proven Wrong:
Even
during the heyday of its popularity in the 1800s, phrenology was often
derided by mainstream scientists as a form of quackery. But their
protests were largely ignored until the 1900s, when modern scientific
advances helped to show that personality traits could not be traced to
specific portions of the brain, at least in not as precise a way as the
proponents of phrenology often claimed. Phrenology still exists today as
a fringe science, but its use in the 20th century has become somewhat
infamous: it has often been employed as a tool to promote racism, most
famously by the Nazis, as well by Belgian colonialists in Rwanda.
2. Einstein’s Static Universe
Prior to scientists embracing the notion that the universe was created
as the result of the Big Bang, it was commonly believed that the size of
the universe was an unchanging constant—it had always been the size it
was, and always would be. The idea stated that that the total volume of
the universe was effectively fixed, and that the whole construct
operated as a closed system. The theory found its biggest adherent in
Albert Einstein—the Static Universe is often known as “Einstein’s
Universe”—who argued in favor of it and even calculated it into his
theory of general relativity.
How it was Proven Wrong:
The theory of a static universe was problematic from the start. First
of all, a finite universe could theoretically become so dense that it
would collapse into a giant black hole, a problem Einstein compensated
for with his principle of the “cosmological constant.” Still, the final
nail in the coffin for the idea was Edwin Hubble’s discovery of the
relationship between red shift—the way the color of heavenly bodies
change as they move away from us—and distance, which showed that the
universe was indeed expanding. Einstein would subsequently abandon his
model, and would later refer to it as the “biggest blunder” of his
career. Still, like all cosmological ideas, the expanding universe is
just a theory, and a small group of scientists today still subscribe to
the old static model.
1. Fleischmann and Pons’s Cold Fusion
While
the conditions required to create nuclear energy usually require
extreme temperatures—think of the processes that power the sun—the
theory of cold fusion states that such a reaction is possible at room
temperature. It’s a deceivingly simple concept, but the implications are
spectacular: if a nuclear reaction could occur at room temperature,
then an abundance of energy could be created without the dangerous waste
that results from nuclear power plants. This groundbreaking theory
briefly seemed to have become a reality in 1989, when the
electro-chemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons published
experimental results suggesting that they had achieved cold fusion—and
the precious “excess energy” it was hoped to produce—in an experiment
where an electric current was run through seawater and a metal called
Palladium. The response to Pons and Fleischmann’s claims by the media
and the scientific community was overwhelming. The experiments were
hailed as a turning point in science, and it was briefly believed that
with cold fusion energy would be cheap, clean, and abundant.
How it was Proven Wrong:
The
fervor over cold fusion died down as soon as other scientists tried to
replicate the experiment. Most failed to get any kind of similar
results, and after their paper was closely studied, Fleischmann and Pons
were accused not only of sloppy, unethical science, but were even said
to have stretched the truth of their results. For years after, the idea
of cold fusion became synonymous with fringe science. Still, despite the
stigma attached to it, many have argued that there was never anything
necessarily wrong about cold fusion as a theory. In recent years,
scientists have once again started to experiment with new ways of
achieving a so-called “tabletop nuclear reaction,” with some even
claiming to have achieved surprising success.
Read more: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-scientific-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-wrong.php#ixzz2b8stNdG5
Read more at http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-scientific-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-wrong.php#KULbDWkdai4QHzO8.99
Other Theories soon to be joining this list:
Dr. Jeff Meldrum’s “Legend Meets Science” - mid-tarsal break theory
Jack Barnes and Jeff Anderson (FB/FB) - “You are Sasquatch” theory (supports the theory of evolution)
Charles Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” theory of Evolution
Just to name a few
How
they were proven wrong:
The body of a dead Bigfoot specimen,
irrefutable scientific study and data containing supporting facts.
And a lot more which will be detailed in the second part of this article STAY TUNED!!!!
