It's okay if your top ten all relate to Tesla.

[mrissa]

timprov asked this on his journal, but I have a different friendslist and I'm curious, so I'm asking again:

What's your favorite scientific theory that turned out to be ridiculously counterfactual? (e.g. Lamarckism, Lysenkoism, Galvanism.)

Comments

[panjianlien.livejournal.com]

Hymens prove virginity.

That one was so good I got 30% of a book out of it.

[landofnowhere]

Kelvin's theory that atoms are knotted vortices of ether.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ether makes everything hilarious. I have said this for years.

[themagdalen.livejournal.com]

I was going to say ether!

Okay, phlogiston.

[brooksmoses]

I'm rather fond of phlogiston theory. Especially the antigravity parts of it.

Also, though it was really more of an engineering theory than a scientific one, the theory that sustained fusion reactions would be easy to control and use for power generation.

[jebbypal]

DNA -> RNA -> protein.
Still not comfortable with the whole prion thing, but its here to stay.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"In time your neurons may crumble--cognition may tumble--just like they're made of clay. But! Prions are here to stay...."

Now I'm going to be bastardizing that poor song for the rest of the evening.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If my favorite color is blue, your favorite color can also be blue. Crackpot theories: same deal.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Phrenology--remarkably for how long it persisted.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I've got to go with the hollow earth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_earth). Seriously put forward by Edmund Halley, completely 100% wrong, and still a popular fixation of crackpots -- beat that!

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Do "ancient astronauts" count, or is that more fake anthropology?

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

Ectoplasm!

[brooksmoses]

Hah! I was saying phlogiston just as you were; I hadn't seen your comment when I posted.

Luckily, as mrissa says, people can share favorites.

[ellarien]

And another vote for phlogiston.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Spontaneous generation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation)

Because it amuses me to think of a relationship between geese and barnacles.

Because it seems so ridiculous now, but if you were, say, Aristotle, the logical chain leading to it made good sense. Trees form from seeds, why shouldn't eels form from earthworms?

And because without it we wouldn't have "Or All The Seas With Oysters," one of my favorite stories.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Also, I shall have to type it in by hand, I think, so I can't do it right now, but one day I shall pass along to you the story of the Darwinian terrorists and the Lamarckian puppies.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I look forward to this day.

[ckd]

I still say phlogiston, because it's still fun to say.

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

Epicycles.

[rosefox]

Bodily humours!

[mirrorthaw.livejournal.com]

Ether is a good one. So is J. J. Thomson's plum pudding model of the atom. Also, Descartes' screw-shaped vortexes to explain magnetism.

[kizmet-42.livejournal.com]

Alchemy. What's not to love? Eternal life and plenty of gold to spend on it.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Phlogiston, because it's so perfectly backwards. Also it is an awesome-sounding word.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Handy, that favorite-sharing.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Honestly, it never really occurred to me to have a favorite, but now that I think about it, I have a small handful of favorites.

1)Phlogiston
2)Geocentrism
3)The one whose name I can't remember, about how all natural laws were known and so all facts could be deduced without the need for direct observation.

There are others for which the word "favorite" would be inappropriate, but which I like to keep around as evidence of man's arrogance and/or stupidity.