We Could Talk About The Weather

[n2ize]

I saw that before you posted it. So she says. I can tell you with complete certainty that when it was discovered that the planets orbited the sun rather than the earth, every scientist could be quoted as saying Galileo was wrong.

Actually many scientists agreed with Galileo. So much so that the model of our solar system was changed, It was the church at the time who conhdemned Galileo and declared he was wrong,,

Same with the idea of plate tectonics when it was discovered by Alfred Wegener in the early 20th Century. In fact until the 1960s with the discovery of the mid-Atlantic rift, Plate Tectonics was debunked by scientists.

And when evidence was found to support Wegener;s hypothesis things changed. There was reasoable evidence to support his ideas.

Pretty much where we are now. A bit from the Mythbusters episode on the Baghdad Battery.

Unlike Galileo or Wegener decades of research has not convinced anyone that the "Bahgdad Cell" was indeed a cell. In fact it's very design indicates that it most likely was not a cell.

Don't get me wrong. I think it would be cool if they could confirm that it was actually an electrochemical cell. The mystery of why, fpor what purpose, would be interesting. However, the present evidence doesn't seem to support the electrochemical cell idea.

[N2NH]

Actually many scientists agreed with Galileo. So much so that the model of our solar system was changed, It was the church at the time who conhdemned Galileo and declared he was wrong

The results of experiments such as these shocked the sensibilities of contemporary scholars. Galileo's experimental methods were entirely foreign to scientists of his day and were regarded by most of his colleagues as undesirable if not dangerous innovations. Accordingly, the results derived in this fashion were also suspect.

From: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GALILEO: Carl J. Wenning, Coordinator, Physics Teacher Education Program, Illinois State University - Link Here.

The church actually sponsored Gallileo. An interesting thing to do if you disagree with someone. In fact, many of the advances made then to his invention the telescope, were done by priests and long outlived the model he invented. The real reason for restricting Gallileo's movements was his penchant for publishing his work and for the uproar that followed by those who couldn't grasp the change he discovered.

Early in Galileo's Battle for the Heavens we are warned that what we were about to see was another example of the "recurring clash between religion and science". Developing this premise was helped by ignoring Kepler and his relations with the Church. Although the Church never provided Kepler with ongoing research grants as they had Galileo [_1_] , they did provide something more important; access to resources and moral support. When Galileo ignored an early request from Kepler to borrow a telescope, it was the Archbishop of Cologne who leant him one. The last of Kepler's books to be published, Somnium, contained a gushing thank you to the Jesuit mathematician, Paul Guldin, an enduring advocate and friend of Kepler. The appendix also mentioned his joy over the gift of a telescope hand-made by the master Jesuit telescope-maker, Niccolo Zucchi. Between these early and later events there were many other events, including the Jesuits chasing down a manuscript stolen from Kepler and ensuring its return, and the Jesuits acting as a surrogate postal service for Kepler.

Second Paragraph: Galileo and his Contemporaries -Link Here

And when evidence was found to support Wegener;s hypothesis things changed. There was reasoable evidence to support his ideas.

Wegener was not ridiculed for his theories. He was ridiculed for not being a Geologist. Nobody was trying to prove his theories in the 1960s. They merely had technology catch up to the need to find the Mid-Atlantic Rift. They finally invented the deep-sea submersible, in this case the Alvin, and could find it for themselves.

Wegener also shares much in common with Galileo. Wegener probably had at least as strong a case for Continental Drift in 1929 as Galileo had for the Copernican model in 1633. The reason many do not realize this is that the controversy is usually presented as a controversy between Galileo and the Church and not Galileo and other scientists (see Galileo's Battle for the Heavens). As a result most discussions of the early Copernican Model do not even mention any problems associated with the Copernican model. But it was a scientific controversy and it had many of the same elements of the Continental Drift controversy.

Interestingly, Darwin despite having the same limitations on his theory, had no such resistance, as seen from this passage.

The main problem with Wegener's hypothesis of Continental Drift was the lack of a mechanism. He did not have an explanation for how the continents moved. Some argue that this failing justified the early reactions to his work and to its dismissal. But Charles Darwin was missing a mechanism for the inheritance of beneficial traits when he published the Origin of Species in 1859. Darwin had amassed a huge amount of evidence that supported some type of adaptive process that contributed to the evolution of new species, much like Wegener had for Continental Drift. He argued that with the natural variations that occur in populations, any trait that is beneficial would make that individual more likely to survive and pass on the trait to the next generation. If enough of these selections occured on different beneficial traits you could end up with completely new species. One major flaw in Darwin's theory was that he did not have a mechanism for how the traits could be preserved over the succeeding generations. At the time, the prevailing theory of inheritance was that the traits of the parents were blended in the offspring. But this would mean that any beneficial trait would be diluted out of the population within a few generations. This is because most of the blending over the next generations would be with individuals that did not have the trait.

In spite of the lack of a mechanism for the preservation of traits, Darwin's theory quickly came to dominate. Within 5 years, Oxford University was using a biology textbook that discussed biology in the context of evolution by natural selection.

From Wegener and Continental Drift, LINK HERE

Unlike

JUST LIKE

Galileo or Wegener decades of research has not convinced anyone that the "Bahgdad Cell" was indeed a cell.

So close, but alas, so completely and entirely wrong.

Ahem.

And everything you know is wrong.

Yes Quicks Draw ju are right.

^^^What he said^^^

Would you like a lifeline?