Unlike subjects like math, where we have solid answers that never change, science is always evolving. That’s why scientists sometimes can’t give you a definite answer to things. It’s easy to say we know everything, but that would be wrong. Instead, scientists say things like “based on what we know now” or “our current understanding.” This is because there have been cases where scientific theories seemed true for a long time but turned out to be completely wrong. Take the example of Galen, a famous Roman doctor. For almost 1,000 years, people believed everything he said about the human body, even though he never actually examined a human body. He studied animals instead, which are very different from us. Eventually, scientists realized his ideas were incorrect when they started studying actual human bodies. This shows how scientists can be fooled, and there are many other examples like this. So, science is always changing, and what we think is true today might be different tomorrow.
[Image via Charles Thévenin]
Lamarckian Inheritance
- People Behind It: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
- Belief Timeframe: Mid-1700s to late 1800s
Lamarckism is one of those things that makes sense, but the more you really think about it…the more you see it’s complete garbage. However, it is easy to see why Jean-Baptiste Lamarck felt the way he did. The French zoologist used the classical era theory of soft inheritance in his own idea of evolution. The goal was to use this to supplement his concept of orthogenesis. This is the belief that organisms tend to evolve in a specific direction, toward some goal due to some driving force. Lamarck used giraffes to explain this. They have long necks because they kept stretching and stretching to reach higher leaves until they finally reached the form we see today.
[Image via SlidePlayer.com]Essentially, Lamarck felt that one acquired characteristics or traits that one could then pass on to future generations. As in, I could become a good basketball player through hard work but then my son would somehow be good at basketball when he grows up. Specifically, because I became good at basketball. While he could work to become great too, he would not simply be guaranteed to be amazing only because I was. Obviously, simple things such as the discovery of genetics and DNA refuted this big time. It made sense for Lamarck to utilize evolution in a way that seemed plausible. It just simply doesn’t work as he assumed.
[Image via Fizkes/Shutterstock.com]
Telegony
- People Behind It: Aristotle, Arthur Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer, Biblical Writers
- Belief Timeframe: 200 BCE to 1900s CE
The Theory of Telegony, in a way, made sense to so many likely due to their beliefs at the time. See, back then most felt that women needed to be “pure” when they were married off. Basically, she needed to be a virgin or a person who never had intimate relations. Even the Holy Bible references the idea that if a husband dies, then the husband’s brother will essentially take his sister-in-law on as another wife. The theory was that offspring could inherit traits from every mate that their mother had. It was a big deal during ancient periods as people like Aristotle thought it to be true, eventually, Biblical writers reference things connected to it.
[Image via Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com]This was one of the big scientific theories that fooled scientists because so many felt that men could pass on both good and bad things to future offspring. This is often what led to the concept of slave owners using female slaves as sexual objects. They felt they could give their “white” traits to the child to make them “better.” If a black man got with a white woman though, he’d obviously pass on his bad black traits within this theory. However, we now know that offspring only develop things from the specific biological parents and ONLY them. Several people still bought into telegony even after this knowledge was relatively well known.
[Image via Science Source]
Vitalism
- People Behind It: Aristotle, Galen, Paracelsus
- Belief Timeframe: 300 BCE to 19th Century
Vitalism is a major part of the alternative medicine world. Essentially, it is a form of pseudoscience that has never really proven to be true. Most believe it began as a theory due to Roman physician Galen in the 3rd century BCE. He poses that living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities. Mostly because they contain some non-physical element or are somehow governed by different principles when compared to inanimate objects. Vitalism utilizes the “vital principle” in that an element has a vital spark or energy, which was often linked to the “soul.”
[Image via Eray Adiguzel/Shutterstock.com]This became one of the scientific theories that fooled scientists for years, especially during the 18th to 19th centuries. Johannes Reinke decided to propose a testable hypothesis, meant to show inadequacies with mechanic explanations. Yet these tests failed to show support for vitalism at all. Eventually, biologists came to see vitalism as heavily untrue. We could refute it with clear empirical evidence, so by the 20th century most saw it simply as pseudoscience only. Sadly, many medical philosophies and traditional healing practices utilized this theory. They felt that diseases resulted from some imbalance with the vital forces and tried to bring balance. Of course, this is untrue so none of these practices ever really offered much.
[Image via Marvel Studios]
Spontaneous Human Combustion
- People Behind It: Paul Rolli, Larry E. Arnold, L.A. Perry
- Belief Timeframe: Mid-1700s to Late-1800s
Many years ago, people actually believed that one could just burst into flames randomly. Somehow a fire would start inside the body of a victim and they would just explode apparently. For a while, this was among the scientific theories that fooled scientists in many fields. Literature would reference this phenomenon a bit and most of the time, the apparent “real world” version of this connected well with literature. For years, scientists tried to analyze any reported instances of one just bursting into flames at random with no external source.
[Image via Joe Burgett/Stable Diffusion]Many scientists examined this to a point where they checked for victim behavior and habits, alcohol consumption, and obviously how close they were to a source of ignition. They even tested for the behavior of fires that consume melted fats. This became a big deal when Paul Rolli referenced something related to it in the Philosophical Transactions when he referenced the mysterious death of Countess Cornelia Zangheri Bandi. By 1995, Larry E. Arnold, Director of ParaScience International, claimed there were 200 cited reports of spontaneous combustion over the last 300 years. Yet this has never once been proven, because no one just bursts into flames dead or alive without an external source.
[Image via The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation]
Geocentrism
- People Behind It: Aristotle, Claudius Ptolemy, Anaximander
- Belief Timeframe: 600 BCE – 1600s CE
Due to the feeling that we were the only possible planet with life on it, many felt that everything revolved around us. We were the clear center of not only our own solar system but some even felt we were the center of the universe entirely. This theory was heavily accepted in ancient times and even lasted through the Middle Ages. We could see why it was among the scientific theories that fooled scientists. Before we had the proper equipment, it would be hard to really know any better.
[Image via All That’s Interesting]All we had was the naked eye, which was not enough to make a clear determination. Eventually, we had the heliocentric model that supported the observations and calculations of Nicolaus Copernicus. Later on, infamous names like Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei demonstrated how the Earth revolved around the Sun. The Geocentric Model slowly began to die off, and no one who understands science can ever truly defend it.
[Image via Wikipedia Commons]
Theory Of N-Rays
- People Behind It: Prosper-René Blondlot
- Belief Timeframe: 1903 to 1910
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, radiation had become a pretty hot topic. Pierre and Marie Curie had been working with radiation and discovering new forms of the stuff for many years. It should not surprise anyone that the French physicist Prosper-René Blondlot came up with the idea of something called “N-Rays.” This was thought to be a new form of radiation that could be both detected and manipulated. The only problem with Blondlot’s concept was that scientists could never reproduce the same results that Blondlot managed to get. Initially, the results that Blondlot came to were striking.
[Image via Ratio Scientiae]Yet the reason this was one of the scientific theories that fooled scientists for a while was simply due to when Blondlot put out his results. X-Rays and vacuum ultraviolet radiation had been discovered less than or right at a decade before this. Electrons were discovered around this time too. Clearly, there was an explosion in the world of physics so N-Rays seemed like they could be possible considering so many other things were being found. In the end, Blondlot either used his own bias or some sort of faulty methodology to get his results. It took less than a decade for people to forget all about N-Rays.
[Image via Nico Nelson/Flickr]
Polywater
- People Behind It: Boris Deryagin, Nikolai Fedyakin
- Belief Timeframe: 1962 to late-1970s (some still believe in the present)
The concept of Polywater is still something people believe in today, and it has caused a lot of controversy in the field of science. Therefore, it should not surprise you that this has become one of the big scientific theories that fooled scientists for years. The idea is that there is a supposedly “polymerized” form of water. Which is water that consists of large molecules or macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Since they have a huge spectrum of properties, both synthetic and natural polymers play essential roles in our everyday life. Soviet Union physicist Nikolai Fedyakin had initially worked on a form of water that had higher boiling points and lower freezing points. It even had a higher viscosity than normal water, making it like syrup.
[Image via Science History Institute]A year later, Boris Deryagin of the Institute for Physical Chemistry in Moscow, improved upon Fedyakin’s work and claimed he discovered a new form of water. Emerging as a real thing in the 1960s, major media outlets began to talk about the “polywater gap” in the United States. This led to scientists looking into it more and they found that there was really no such thing by the mid-1970s. Scientists claimed that polywater is simply illusionary, so anyone buying it was just drinking normal water. If anything else was present in the water, it would have been added by a lab and not simply found that way. We now refer to it as a “pathological science.” This is when people are fooled into believing false results due to something like wishful thinking, subjective effects, or threshold interactions.
[Image via Marvel Comics]
Telepathy
- People Behind It: Frederic Myers, William F. Barrett
- Belief Timeframe: Late 1880s to Present
While most of us would only relate something like telepathy to comic book characters, that was not always the case. Some forms of telepathy looked very real to the untrained eye, resulting in it being one of the scientific theories that fooled scientists. The idea was that one could move objects with their mind without ever touching the object. Usually, a magician would perform this move with a doctored spoon. Since it was metal and could be bent easily on one side but still hold its shape well, it was easy to use as a tool. Some tried to pass themselves off as real telepaths and would go onto talk show circuits from the 1960s to as far as the 1990s to perform this.
[Image via Marvel Studios]Coined by Frederic Myers in 1882, telepathy began to rise in popularity around the same time major stage shows for magicians started to pop up more often. One big issue people in science had was the way telepathy would be tested. One example of this involved the aforementioned Frederic Myers and William F. Barrett, who only ever tried to prove telepathy existed and never tried to analyze whether it existed or not. This often led to bad results with scientists like this, because all of the people scientists studied were performing an act. Some still believe in telepathy today, but it is a massive form of pseudoscience that has never once been proven real.
[Image via Medical News Today]
Miasma Theory
- People Behind It: Hippocrates, Galen, Vitruvius, Florence Nightingale
- Belief Timeframe: 400 BCE to 1800s CE
Miasma Theory is a pretty interesting belief that, if we’re being honest, made a lot of sense to buy into. This theory claims that diseases are caused by foul-smelling odors or as some claim “bad air.” Of course, many were not aware of what caused those bad smells. Any time someone contracted a disease like cholera or even chlamydia, it was always blamed on the air they inhaled. Even the Black Death was thought to be caused by this. Many felt that major epidemics were caused by miasma, as there was apparently a lot of rotting organic matter in the area.
[Image via Annaliberty111/Shutterstock.com]Some academics in ancient times felt that miasma contributed to other issues too. Like how the odor of food is what makes one obese, for example. The person who really managed to get this concept going was the great Hippocrates in the fourth century BCE. He was able to get a lot of things right with very little to help him, but this was not one of them. Miasma belief is also what led to the infamous Roman/Italian plague doctors who wore beak-like facemasks. They were mixed with various smelling salts to avoid smelling or inhaling bad odors. Ironically, this did help to shield them from viruses that could travel from person to person.
[Image via Anusorn Nakdee/Shutterstock.com]
Recapitulation Theory
- People Behind It: Étienne Serres
- Belief Timeframe: 1820s to Early-20th Century CE
The Recapitulation Theory comes from the mind of Étienne Serres, based on the work of Johann Friedrich Meckel. It was not a crazy idea, considering the idea of Charles Darwin’s “evolution” concept was pretty new. This is really why it became one of the scientific theories that fooled scientists for a while. The theory proposes that the development of an embryo of an animal, from its fertilization to gestation (or hatching), goes through stages resembling or representing successive adult stages in the evolution of that species’ remote ancestors.
[Image via LightField Studios/Shutterstock.com]The theory, formed in the 1820s, kind of made sense. In fact, it is not exactly incorrect entirely. During human development, we actually develop a tail during this process which connects us to our hominid ancestors. That tail goes away as we develop further though. Of course, since embryos evolve in different ways, there were many issues with the Recapitulation Theory. By the mid-20th century, it was downgraded to a myth. Again, it was not a crazy theory. Especially because of the current discussions going on about evolution. However, this simply turned out not to be true.
[Image via Shaiith/Shutterstock.com]
Alchemy
- People Behind It: Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Japanese, Chinese, etc.
- Belief Timeframe: 100 to 1800s CE
We want to be upfront about this very quickly. Alchemy did later turn into a field we know today as pharmacology, however, it did not begin that way. In fact, alchemy was used in various spiritual ways all over the world. Europe might have been known the most for this due to people such as the Druids, Templars, Magi, Witch Covens, and even the Freemasons (which later existed in America). They used to make “potions” and use a lot of magical words or perform various rituals along with giving people the potion. In the end, the words and rituals were useless and meant nothing. It was just showmanship and a lot of smoke and mirrors.
[Image via Maya Kruchankova/Shutterstock.com]Initially, alchemy was used to transform base metals into precious metals, such as gold and silver. Yet people quickly began to see how it could be utilized for other purposes too. At one point, alchemy was used to discover the “philosopher’s stone,” which was believed to grant eternal life and even had magical properties. No one ever found it, but that did not stop people from looking for it. At the end of the day, alchemy became useful for modern chemistry and medications. Without people sort of stumbling across this process, our world could be quite different today.
[Image via George Rudy/Shutterstock.com]
Maternal Impression Theory
- People Behind It: Soranus of Ephesus, Pliny the Elder, John Maubray, Rene Descartes, Aristotle, Plato
- Belief Timeframe: Late-400s BCE to Early 1900s
Maternal Impression Theory has been long discredited, but it was not a crazy idea. It is not shocking why this was among the scientific theories that fooled scientists for many years. The idea is that any sort of physical or emotional experiences of a pregnant woman could affect the development of her unborn child. Usually, it was all about the mental or emotional side rather than the physical. Thus, any powerful mental influence working on the mother’s mind could produce an “impression” on the child she is carrying, which apparently “marked” the child.
[Image via Riopatuca/Shutterstock.com]At the time, this was used to explain the existence of birth defects and congenital disorders. If a person ended up having a mental disorder, it was blamed on the mother due to the emotional state she was in. Therefore, any disordered feelings she had could cause issues for her unborn child. One infamous example of this involved the real-life “Elephant Man” Joseph Merrick. It was claimed that his mother was frightened by an elephant, which “imprinted” on her son. We have been able to disprove this theory entirely using modern genetic theory and a better understanding of evolution.
[Image via Sciencing]
Expanding Earth Theory
- People Behind It: Klaus Vogel, Warren Carey, Alfred Wegener
- Belief Timeframe: Late-1800s to Early-1900s
One could come to the conclusion that if there is a creator, he or she would make a planet that could withstand any population, right? Well, in theory, maybe. Yet in reality, the concept of a planet that expands is kinda nuts. The concept of the Expanding Earth Theory was that the planet gradually will increase over time. For a while, this became one of the scientific theories that fooled scientists because of what an expanding Earth might cause. People blamed it for the occurrence of things like earthquakes, the movement of our continents, and other geological phenomena.
[Imag via SyFy]We were able to disprove this concept entirely due to the introduction of plate tectonics. That also included the support from geological and geophysical evidence that continues to this day. When they were first introduced, plate tectonics were relatively controversial. There are some to this day that still do not believe in them, even though we have found more than enough data to support this idea. Either way, even those who disagree with the plate tectonic concept still do not agree that the Earth is randomly expanding every year. However, it is theorized that the planet has expanded some over time, as well as other planets. Just not at the pace that others assumed.
[Image via Naeblys/Shutterstock.com]
Static Universe Model
- People Behind It: Thomas Digges, Albert Einstein(kinda)
- Belief Timeframe: Mid-1500s to Early-1900s
The Static Universe Model proposes that the universe remains unchanged, without any expansion or contraction. Several people bought into this, and it made sense to see why. They did not have the kind of technology that we’d later be able to use. That is why this model became one of the big scientific theories that fooled scientists for centuries. The English Astronomer Thomas Digges was the first to propose this specific model. Albert Einstein then came in with his own interpretation of a temporally infinite but also spatially finite model. He felt that the universe would either collapse or expand forever.
[Image via NASA]This would later come to be known as the Einstein Static Universe model. Yet after the discovery of the redshift-distance relationship by the American astronomers Vesto Slipher and Edwin Hubble, the talk of a static universe changed. This was only enhanced when astrophysicist and priest, Georges Lemaître interpreted redshift as evidence of a universal expansion. He then proposed the concept of the now infamous “Big Bang.” Due to these discoveries, the idea of a static universe in any form was put to rest for good. However, many scientists were incorrect in the expansion amount as we later found out the universe is expanding at a rapid pace very few thought possible.
[Image via BBC]
Steady State Theory
- People Behind It: Fred Hoyle, Tommy Gold, Hermann Bondi
- Belief Timeframe: Mid-1900s
The Steady State Theory is something that some scientists still believe in, to this day. Therefore, it is not wrong to state that it is one of the scientific theories that fooled scientists for a long time. The concept proposes that the universe maintains a constant density and does not have a beginning or an end. The theory gained quite a lot of popularity in the mid-1900s, especially as an alternative to the Big Bang Theory at the time. Yet once we discovered things like cosmic microwave background radiation among other major things that supported the Big Bang, the Steady State Theory slowly began to die off.
[image via Pixelparticle/Shutterstock.com]The theory came from the British Astronomer Fred Hoyle along with his colleagues Tommy Gold and Hermann Bondi. Funny enough, they actually developed this theory after watching the movie Dead of Night. It is a movie that actually ends the way it begins. While some believe that the Big Bang itself could have been caused by an eternal multiverse, our specific universe does have a beginning. On top of this, unlike the fiery start to our universe, it will one day end in a dark and cold way. Death not in fire and brimstone, but in ice.
[Image via Ubisoft Entertainment SA]
The Four Humors
- People Behind It: Hippocrates, Most Of The Known World
- Belief Timeframe: Mid-400s BCE to 1850s CE
In the early days of medicine and actual physicians, you had nothing to go on. At least, nothing other than what you saw and were able to do. Therefore, when a man comes around that is able to do so many incredible things, you’d likely believe him. One man like this that stood out was the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates. He is so influential to the world of medicine that doctors and nurses take an oath inspired by him called the “Hippocratic Oath.” This oath is to do no harm to anyone you’re treating, regardless of how you feel about them. One of his most prominent concepts, and one of the few he was wrong about, was the Four Humors concept.
[Image via Ugis Riba/Shutterstock.com]In all fairness, this is not entirely Hippocrates’ idea. Alcmaeon of Croton is said to have come up with the idea several decades beforehand. Yet Hippocrates applied the idea to medicine, suggesting there were four humors are the four vital body fluids. Those are blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. This idea held merit for centuries, and it took until the 17th century CE before it fell out of favor. By the mid-18th century, it had been disproven entirely, mostly due to the concept of germ theory, which proved diseases previously assumed to be humoral were actually caused by microbes.
[Image via Crystal Light/Shutterstock.com]
Theory Of Spontaneous Remission
- People Behind It: Tilden C. Everson, Warren H. Cole, Wilhelm Busch, Friedrich Fehleisen, William Bradley Coley
- Belief Timeframe: 1700s to mid-1900s
Let’s face it, we’d all love to say that we just got better from a disease randomly as if by a miracle. However, this is not exactly how anything works. Years ago though, many physicians believed this was possible likely due to a highly religious population. The Theory of Spontaneous Remission proposes that certain diseases or conditions could disappear or improve without any medical intervention. The issue with this concept is that it is not entirely incorrect. That is why it was one of the scientific theories that fooled scientists for so long. Since our body’s immune system helps us to fight things off like the common cold, you do not need medical intervention to get over it.
[Image via WWE]However, rather than crediting the immune system, people used to believe that supernatural concepts were behind the recovery. The idea of a “spontaneous remission” for more critical diseases like cancer is usually unlikely. Most of the time, a random recovery without medical intervention is usually due to an understandable cause. For example, a tumor or growth in the body might not be cancerous to start with. Sometimes, tumors can shrink too. Obviously, doctors or machines can also make errors in their original readings too. Of course, you can go into remission from cancer but usually, this is only after medical intervention took place.
[Image via American Philosophical Society]
Eugenics
- People Behind It: William Beveridge, John Maynard Keynes, H.G. Wells, Plato, Adolph Hitler, George Bernard Shaw, Winston Churchill
- Belief Timeframe: 400s BCE to 1900s CE
Eugenics aimed to improve the genetic quality of the human population, but it was a fringe idea that was completely based on the opinion of those in power. It attempted to alter the gene pool by excluding specific people or groups that those in power thought to be inferior. Meanwhile, it promoted those judged to be superior to others. As crazy as it is to believe, it was actually Plato that first discussed the concept of what would become eugenics. He suggested applying the principles of selective breeding to humans, but he did not endorse the slaughter of entire groups. Sparta used to use a council of judges to decide whether or not a child was fit to live too. Early Germanic tribes used to kill those they considered to be cowardly too.
[Image via Fox Searchlight Pictures]Eugenics really took off in the 1800s and 1900s, somewhat using Charles Darwin’s evolution concept to do so. While it might have essentially started in ancient Greece, it had become a hot-button idea in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and several other European nations. Historically, Adolph Hitler was one of the biggest advocates of this ideology. Yet in the United States, we used to slaughter Native Americans to “cleanse” territories for the “white man.” We also are known for our horrific segregation thing involving African-Americans too. Eugenics overall is horrible, yet we’re still seeing it discussed today. Things like genetic editing have started another big conversation about this that we’ll continue to have long-term. Today, we see eugenics as a form of scientific racism though.
[Image via Sakkmesterke/Shutterstock.com]
Cold Fusion
- People Behind It: Martin Fleischmann & Stanley Pons
- Belief Timeframe: 1989 to Early 2000s
For a very long time now, we’ve wanted the idea of cold fusion to be a reality. In 1989, this was thought to have happened when two electrochemists named Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons claimed to have done it. Cold fusion is the hypothetical ability to achieve nuclear fusion at room temperature. The scientists claimed they produced anomalous heat of a magnitude they claimed would defy explanation, except in terms of nuclear processes. They also claimed they measured small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, like neutrons and tritium.
[Image via April Cat/Shutterstock.com]They apparently did this through an experiment that involved the electrolysis of heavy water on the surface of a palladium electrode. If true, their cold fusion concept could be massive. Therefore, it’s easy to see why this became one of the scientific theories that fooled scientists. People wanted this to be a reality. However, people tried to repeat their experiments and no one ever managed to achieve the same results. Ever since then, people have claimed cold fusion is only theoretical. While most do not believe it could ever happen, we once said that about reaching ignition too. Look how that turned out.
[Image via Holly Anne Cromer/Shutterstock.com]
Phrenology
- People Behind It: Franz Joseph Gall
- Belief Timeframe: Late-1700s to Mid-1900s
Phrenology has to be one of the coolest and weirdest things you could ever see. Some magicians actually still use the concept on stage. The concept behind phrenology was that the brain is the organ of the mind, so therefore certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules. The brain is composed of different muscles, and those used more often were bigger. This is what caused the shapes of skulls. Therefore, areas of the brain lacking muscles were parts of the brain used less frequently. Phrenology was also said to have been able to predict personality traits based entirely on the shape of the skull.
[Image via AlessandraRC/Shutterstock.com]All of this was complete BS and was never truly proven. German physician Franz Joseph Gall came up with the idea back in 1796 and became a pretty big part of science for a long time. In fact, it led to the Edinburgh Phrenological Society being built in 1820. It’s easy to see that with so much support from those in the field of neuroscience, how this became one of the big scientific theories that fooled scientists. Sadly, phrenology was also used by racists and eugenicists to show why people of different ethnicities were lesser than others. Such as claiming areas of the skull were not as prominent due to ignorance. However, phrenology slowly fell out of favor by the mid-1900s. By the 2000s, most labeled it as nothing more than a pseudoscience.
SOURCES:
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Harvard University
University of Cambridge
University of California – Berkeley
Johns Hopkins University
University of Chicago
University of Bristol – School of Chemistry
Waterford Institute of Technology
University of Missouri
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
College of DuPage
National Human Genome Research Institute
American Chemical Society
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
WIRED