I know a lot of people put their faith in science, but scientific theory is not always correct and even some scientific theories we have had for a long time could turn out to be wrong in the future. In the 19th century there was a belief canals existed on Mars. The Italian astronomer Schiaparelli in 1877 saw straight lines on Mars and called them canali which was translated to canals in English. Other astronomers thought they also saw these lines and since the observations were made with relatively low power telescopes without cameras, this belief went on until the early 20th century. Scientists found out later, when they had better instruments, these lines were merely optical illusions. So along with the theory canals existed on Mars being wrong, so was the idea there were intelligent beings on Mars who built them.

Spontaneous generation was thought to be a reason life arose in some instances. If we go back to Aristotle we find he proposed this theory. As time went by the theory began to fall apart, but it was still thought maggots were born spontaneously. The famous scientist Louis Pasteur proved this was wrong and he did it in a very simple way. He put a piece of meat in a sealed container and no maggots appeared on it. It turned out airborne microorganisms were responsible for the birth of maggots
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One very popular scientific belief was that phrenology was actually useful as a scientific tool in neuroscience. Phrenology is the study of the bumps on the head. The study of phrenology goes back thousands of years. Scientists believed certain character traits could be ascertained by checking for these bumps. Phrenologists believed the larger a part of a person’s brain was the more likely this would cause the person to behave in a certain manner. In the 1800s main stream scientists began to revolt against this and called it pseudoscience and today it is just thought to be hokum.

Before the crater was found in 1991 which was believed to have been created by the meteor which wiped out the dinosaurs, science taught us a huge volcanic explosion did the job. When scientists found the crater the theory was revised to reflect a meteor destroyed them, but it is not the only theory. Another theory states parasites destroyed the dinosaurs and there has been extensive examination of dinosaur poop which some scientists say prove this.

We were told for years Neanderthals died out because they weren’t as smart as us and we had better tools and better social relations. This theory slowly fell by the wayside as more discoveries were made which have shown Neanderthals were just as smart as we were, also had equivalent tools, were stronger than us and had social relationships. This has created a mystery and that mystery is why did the Neanderthals disappear? Could humans have spread a disease they couldn’t survive?

Remember the time before the Human Genome Project in 2003? If you were a science buff you might remember scientists believed the more complicated a life form was the more genes it must have. As the project advanced scientists were amazed to find humans had somewhere around 20,000 genes, but many simpler forms of life had more. A grape has 30,434 genes. On top of all of this we are not sure of the exact amount of genes we have, but we know we are close in our count. Now we know there may be no relationship to the amount of genes in something and how complex it is.

For years we were told by scientists the universe is not only slowing down its expansion, but will ultimately start to retract and collapse in on itself. We constantly heard this throughout the 1990s, but then some new measurements were made. You have to realize our technology is getting better all the time. We found not only was the universe not slowing down, it was expanding faster. It seems science had gotten this one totally wrong.

For hundreds of years scientists believed hair and fingernails grew after a person died. Now it is said they do not, but the skin shrinks given the appearance of growth.

Before the 20th century scientists believed the continents were stable and there was no movement, but in 1912 Alfred Wegener formulated the theory of continental drift and by the 1950s scientists began studying plate tectonics.

In the 1800s scientists believed the earth was only a few million years old. By the time we reached about the middle of the 20 century they believed it was about 4.55 billion years old. I am still not entirely convinced this will turn out to be the final age of the earth. As with all things scientific we could discover more evidence indicating this date to be wrong.

Scientists believed all physics fell under Newtonian physics, but as they developed better instruments and were able to delve into the Quantum realm they discovered they were wrong. Newtonian physics doesn’t work with the very tiny. They had to develop the theory of Quantum Physics, so now we have two types of physics, one for the macro world and one for the micro world.

Scientific theory and our beliefs in scientific laws are our guidelines. We have to realize all scientific theories and even laws could change as more data is obtained. Many will remain the same, but we will never know which ones for sure. These theories and laws are the best we have so we have to use them as a guide until something better comes along.