Science Was Wrong: Startling Truths About Cures, Theories, and Inventions "They" Declared Impossible

"Establishment" scientists need to get their collective heads out of the sand when a new idea comes forth. Instead, they endeavor to harrass & discredit those trying to institute a better way of doing things. In the past, too many women died shortly after giving birth simply because doctors refused to follow sanitary procedures. Likewise, many people with smallpox suffered agonizing deaths due to doctors' disbelief of vaccines. This scenario was repeated when AIDS came on the scene in the 1980's. How many more must die due to ignorance & superstition?

Save your money. There are a LOT of examples in the past 200 years of science being wrong. But they're not in THIS book. The first chapter is basically quotes of 19th century ASTRONOMERS saying powered human flight would probably be impossible. Large parts of the book cite as "proof of concept" single or a few oddball highly speculative articles from the 1950's or early 1960's, early-era military nuclear research programs that were discontinued, and similar non-evidence. A large part of the first part of the book trashes unnamed "impossibilists" who claim spaceflight to other star systems will be impossible and then "proves" otherwise with loads of arcane speculation--nothing whatsoever to do with "science was wrong".To a large extent the sub-theme of this book is really, "Such-and-such is rejected by mainstream science but THIS speculation plus THIS speculation plus these three ADDITIONAL speculations plus ... COULD indicate that such-and-such MIGHT somehow be true. THEREFORE, REJECTION OF THE IDEA OF UFOs is ridiculous!"One of the things the authors do point out is that many of the people in the 1800's or early 1900's who said, "Such and such isn't possible" (REASONABLY) did not anticipate that the U.S. government and private industry would spend HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars in the latter 20th century. So to a large extent it's not really fair to trash them as "impossibilists" as the authors do repeatedly.This can be an interesting topic, but unfortunately the authors are mainly interested in speculation and arguing--without offering any alleged supporting evidence--that fringe areas like supposed psychic phenomena, astrology, etc., are valid. Instead, they could have simply researched old newspapers, academic and professional journals, Google Books, and popular magazines such as Life and Time for statements about "impossible" along with "manned flight" and similar terms and produced a book that actually addresses the topic.

Stanton's latest book is well researched and for a non-fiction title, fairly entertaining. He makes the case that when scientists and astronomers in particular make pronouncements on the future of technology they are frequently wrong. The point is that rejecting the notion that ufo's are not real because they do things that defy conventional explanation and a scientist proclaims that it is not possible, may be foolish as science and scientists have a long and distinguished history of being wrong. Full disclosure, I know Stanton Friedman and I am a former scientist. Both of which probably influenced my opinion. Still a good read though.

I loved this book. Stanton and Kathleen proved that the experts are frequently very wrong in their predictions & with their arrogant presumption that they know all.This book told me a lot I did not know & I recommend it to all searchers for the truth.

Having been impressed by both the intelligence and objectivity of nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman for more than a decade, and more recently impressed by co-author Kathleen Marden's analytical mind, when I had a chance to review a friend's copy of this book, it was immediately a "I have to have my own copy" book. Science Was Wrong: Startling Truths About Cures, Theories, and Inventions "They" Declared Impossible The content is both interesting and exciting. I would give a copy as a gift to everyone I know and be convinced they would also be captured by the content.

I'm a huge fan of Stanton Friedman and I highly recommend this book as well as his others.As we grow up we accept a lot or make our minds up with limited information.This book points out how society drags its feet on adapting to the facts.Great examples of resistance to change in formal institutions.

"Now all of the authorities, they just stand around and boast, how they blackmailed the sargeant-at-arms into leaving his post. And picking up on Angel who just arrived here from the Coast, she looked so fine at first but left lookin' just like a ghost..." (from guess where?)

This book collects many outrageous statements from respected scientists exaggerating the impossibility of what we now take for granted. The book is a nice historical perspective. It also reminds us of humanity's ignorance and nearly matched hubris.

Item reviewed: New Page edn, 2010 (paperback)OVERVIEW.An interesting popular view of occasions where science was definitely or allegedly wrong. An entertaining read, with no previous knowledge of science needed. This is especially suitable reading matter for those who believe that science cannot be wrong.DETAIL.There are 14 chapters:Chapter 1, Aviation. The story of how many prominent people including scientists and inventors said that manned flight was impossible and (when it was shown to be possible) of no practical value.Chapter 2, Space. Similar to aviation. One scientist even wrote in 1941 that the launch weight of a moon rocket could not be less than one trillion tons (the figure for Saturn V was 3000 tons). And of course there was the Astronomer Royal's famous outburst 21 months before Sputnik that talk of space travel was "utter bilge". The experts are still at it: the authors show physicist Lawrence Krauss to make statements of impossibility when he doesn't even know what has been achieved with today's technology.Chapter 3, Jupiter and Earth. Deals with the conservatism of astronomers, Velikovsky's successful predictions of a hot Venus and radio waves from Jupiter, academic censorship of Velikovsky, the effects of solar radiation on psychiatric patients, the Gauquelin/Mars effect and the ejection of Dennis Rawlins from CSICOP (now CSI) for running a fair trial. The Humanists in CSICOP refused to consider the evidence - their minds were already made up.Velikovsky made a lot of statements founded on a totally unscientific methodology, only a few of which were found to be true, so this chapter (all in all) seems to be a case where science might be wrong (but probably isn't).Chapter 4, Cosmos. This relates how many things have been declared by scientists to be impossible or impractical, including TV, communications satellites, home/small computers, and masers (the forerunner of lasers).Chapter 5, Cold Fusion or Fraud? A review of the state of current research in cold fusion - still ongoing in several places - concludes that rejection by the majority of the scientific community was premature (although the original announcement by Pons & Fleischmann was highly premature and very poor practice). Another case where science could be wrong.Chapter 6, Politics, Personalities and Childbed Fever. The career of Dr Ignaz Semmelweis, who saved many lives even though his ideas, being ahead of the times, were attacked with great fury. He was accused of pseudoscience.Chapter 7, the Smallpox Wars. Jenner's vaccination procedure was opposed by the clergy at the time (although it should be noted that many of the opponents such as Rev Thomas Malthus were also scientists of their day). There was an outbreak of opposition by scientific supporters of the miasma theory in the 1870s and 1880s, leading to smallpox epidemics that killed thousands. Eventually Pasteur's germ theory triumphed.Chapter 8, the Haemophilia Holocaust. This is about the rise of AIDS in the US. As with any paradigm-threatening idea, there were confusions and conflicts of interest early on. I don't think this can be counted as a case where science was wrong, because any suddenly emerging phenomenon is likely to give rise to these effects. Space and aviation were different - there was plenty of time to develop a mature view but the opportunities were squandered.Chapter 9, the Eugenics Movement in America. An overview. This is a case of being morally wrong - the misuse of science. It is troublesome criticising things on these grounds because ethical views often change.Chapter 10, Methyl Mercury in the Food Chain. Mercury pollutants in the food chain are liable to lead to Minamata Disease, disorientation, paralysis and then death. The scientists at the Chisso Corp at Minamata, Japan, spoke out about the pollution at some risk to their careers. On the evidence supplied, this must be a case where science was right.Chapter 11, Global Warming: Man or Nature? The authors are sceptical of the official position on AGW, pointing out that water vapour is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, and the variability of the solar output over decades. A case where science may be wrong; we don't know.Chapter 12, Extraordinary Visual Feats: Psi Phenomena. This relates firstly the notorious Natasha Demkina case where self-called sceptics skewed the experiment to obtain a negative result. Then there is talk of telepathy in general, where a very large number of experiments have shown slightly better results than chance, but with a very high statistical significance. Curiously, this only works for information mediated visually, not auditorily. Scientists pride themselves on using the experimental method, but here the taboo is too strong for the mainstream.Chapter 13, UFOs. Scientists claim there is no good evidence by ignoring the results of studies to the contrary. The military withhold much data, regardless of Freedom of Information Acts.Chapter 14, The Conundrum of Alien Abduction. These cases, including the Betty and Barney Hill case, are much the most disturbing in the book, and many academics have tried to dismiss them on psychological grounds. The often-quoted Clancy-McNally research at Harvard was seriously flawed methodologically. Nevertheless, this chapter, and the previous one on UFOs, must be classified as "Science might be wrong".So, in spite of the title, most of the science in the book is not necessarily wrong. Where it was wrong, the authors point out the dangers of prediction: "technological progress comes from doing things differently in an unpredictable way". The book does not mention Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."The authors do not mention paradigm theory, as related by Thomas Kuhn in  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . Science tends to fall into paradigms, with a dogma and set ways of doing things as in religion. You might think that consequently they would get things right ; but when dogma deviates from reality, there eventually ensues conflict amongst scientists, paradigm change and the emergence of a new dogma as described by Kuhn. This explains how some of the scientistical nonsense in the book arose. There were also individual scientific disciplines or individual loners (such as the Astronomer Royal above) who should have known better - their colleagues in other sciences mostly did.Unfortunately the book contains a number of minor errors, e.g. on page 125: Spencer's book Developmental Hypothesis was actually published in 1852. There is an index and a good bibliography. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Science Was Wrong: Startling truths about cures, theories and inventions 'They' declared impossible is another wonderful collaboration by Kathleen Marden and Stanton Friedman, this unique union of mindset and approach by each author works beautifully and effectively to provide insight into topical science and the history of science. The authors describe in detail many well-documented cases in history whereby prolific and outstanding scientific work has been back lashed by people for unscientific reasons. Egos, pride, conflicting interests, politics, morality, public opinion and religious dogma, are key features and shown in the book how, at times, science can go wrong and at times derail from the objective. If you want to understand Science and the world of academia and how it all works this is the book for you. A totally fascinating read.E.A. James Swagger, Author of `The Newgrange Sirius Mystery', & `The Megalith Acoustic Mystery'.

One word - EXCELLENT !!! Sceptic, believer or person with a curious interest in the subject this book is a must have read !! Friedman writes to you, the reader, as an intelligent person, not an idiot. He nicely and accurately debunks the debunkers. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can clearly see the parrot fashion explanations of comfort zone sceptics are absolutley ridiculous, laughable and unacceptable.. I highly recommend this and other books written by Stanton T Friedman, they get you thinking !!!

Der Freund für den ich dieses Buch bestellt habe ist sehr begeistert davon und spricht eine klare Kaufempfehlung aus.Ich selber kann über das Buch nicht wirklich viel Aussagen, da es sich nicht um mein Themengebiet handelt und ich das Buch auch nicht gelesen habe.Für Physiker soll das Buch jedoch laut den Aussagen von meinem Kollegen ein absolutes Muss sein.

Yes science was wrong and ufos exist blah blah blah. Friedman can't write to save his life although he sounds really intelligent on the t.v. Aviod. I would suggest the "Science Delusion" by Rupert Sheldrake instead.