The Phlogiston Theory – Wonderfully wrong but fantastically fruitful

I think this compares nicely to Asimov's essay on how wrongness is relative. In it he argues that as ideas become more accurate, it's not reasonable to say the predecessors are simply wrong. Likewise, as we develop new ideas, the mass of invalid ideas is also a part of the foundation that holds up what we now know. To me, without the contrasting experiments and failed theories, our current ideas would seem suspiciously successful and lucky; but if we look at the mountains of counter-results and lame explanations, it's easy to have confidence that we're at least heading vaguely in the right direction. (And it also teaches about the hubris of just how much data can match an incorrect idea!)

[0] http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm

One of the more hilarious (in hindsight) explanations of Phlogiston theory is why a candle eventually goes out if you put a bowl over it.

We now know that it goes out because the reaction runs out of combustible oxygen. Since according to Phlogiston theory combustion involved a substance called Phlogiston being given off , they reasoned the candle went out because a given volume of air could only hold a given amount of Phlogiston.

They even tried to calculate the "maximum capacity of phlogisticated air".

However they weren't entirely wrong they just got it backwards. Phlogiston is basically minus oxygen. :) . So it spurred research in the right direction and eventually got us to the "more correct" explanation.

I can strongly recommend Stephen Granades' talk on phlogiston, where he performs a small experiment to demonstrate its existence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZTD-vYhwj4

See also the sequel (on the luminiferous aether):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpNVG33awq4

In addition, many theories have knowledge gaps that scientists are happy to temporarily plug with placeholders, in the expectation they'll eventually be filled in with permanent replacements.

Dark Energy and Dark Matter are two such examples. They're just keeping the seat warm until we actually have an idea what the hell is going on.

A particularly long lived example was the heredity placeholder in Darwinian evolution that survived nearly a century before Rosalind Franklin et al., finally filled in the gaps.

All facts are wrong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life_of_knowledge

It's nice to see Lamarck usually referred to as wrong, as he might still have a chance to be right.

An interesting article that would be improved by removing the references to "gnu atheism" and "scientism".

Just like phlogiston theory, a software technology can have positive heuristic, despite being seriously flawed. Like VB for instance...

There are few commonly believed economics concepts which demonstrate a remarkable resemblance to this.

"gnu atheism"?