19th Century Scientists also claimed that heavier than air flight would be impossible.
19th century scientists though that space was filled with ether.
The 19th century scientists predicted global warming trope is basically survival bias.
19th century scientists though that space was filled with ether.
The 19th century scientists predicted global warming trope is basically survival bias.
Global warming is a colloquialism. The researchers did the science that gives rise to it.
Luminiferous Aether is just another name for electromagnetic field effects. Which do literally exist but our written logic works out better if we talk around it as an idea not a thing.
You’re just arguing semantics to look smurt. Qualitative ideas like survivorship bias are relative in when they apply.
It’s not the same kind of gibberish “mechanical flight is impossible” ended up being.
It was not until 1904 that Ludwig Prandtl published Über Flüssigkeitsbewegung bei sehr kleiner Reibung (On the Motion of Fluids in Very Little Friction) which first discovered the importance of boundary layers. The breakdown of approximations in those boundary layers allows for all sorts of behaviors that came as a surprise. In time science caught up up with practical engineering advances to finally understand how airplanes can fly, pitchers can throw curve balls, and so on. And even so, those old approximations are still used because they are mostly right!
So they were wrong, but it wasn't gibberish either.
For a similar example of a mostly correct scientific theory producing wrong results, until near the end of the 20th century the linear wave model predicted that rogue waves were impossible. Today we can look back at shipwreck records and laugh at their stupidity. But in fact you can spend a week looking at every wave that passes a point and probably won't find even a single wave that doesn't fit the theory.
Scientific overconfidence in well-tested theories is a systemic error that we are likely to always be prone to. Most of the time it is well justified. But we do nobody a favor by dismissing past examples of this as "gibberish".
The paper itself is available at http://ponce.sdsu.edu/arrhenius_paper_1896.pdf.
The first newspaper article that I'm aware of predicting global warming was in 1912. See https://theconversation.com/for-110-years-climate-change-has... for more on that story.
However, it is remarkable that some predicted it, as not everyone was paying attention.
One issue with "scientists" (and engineers, as well as other humans, including me and you, and everyone on HN) is that they can't help but give their "expert" opinion on every topic, even if they are not an actual expert (related to Dunning-Kruger, although I was recently pointed out[1] that what people call DK is not what the paper was about).
And, from my experience, we tend to attach more credibility to claims by famous people than from skilled people. Or at least broadcast them more. Einstein said that after he became famous, people started asking his opinion on any topic, from politics to football.
Aka being human.
This all says more about the people invoking it than the supposed effect.
That is, they expect otherwise smart people to not behave like people. But they do, and they talk about subjects they have no clue about, just like everyone else.