ChemEngineer
Diamond Member
- Feb 5, 2019
- 6,078
- 5,875
- 1,940
I have been compiling this list for a few years after growing increasingly frustrated with sheep telling us about "evolution," "climate change," and most recently, "Covid-19 shots and masks."
Life expectancy in 2022 was 78.99 years
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life-expectancy#
These published health experts died long before the average American:
And the chief priests and the scribes stood, vehemently accusing him. (Jesus) Luke 23:10 [And Jesus was crucified.]
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”- Max Planck, Nobel Laureate in Physics
The Semmelweis reflex or "Semmelweis effect" is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.[1]
The term derives from the name of Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician who discovered in 1847 that childbed fever mortality rates fell ten-fold when doctors disinfected their hands with a chlorine solution before moving from one patient to another, or, most particularly, after an autopsy. (At one of the two maternity wards at the university hospital where Semmelweis worked, physicians performed autopsies on every deceased patient.) Semmelweis's procedure saved many lives by stopping the ongoing contamination of patients (mostly pregnant women) with what he termed "cadaverous particles", twenty years before germ theory was discovered.[2] Despite the overwhelming empirical evidence, his fellow doctors rejected his hand-washing suggestions, often for non-medical reasons. For instance, some doctors refused to believe that a gentleman's hands could transmit disease.[3]
In the preface to the fiftieth anniversary edition of his book The Myth of Mental Illness, Thomas Szasz says that Semmelweis's biography impressed upon him at a young age, a "deep sense of the invincible social power of false truths."[5]
In 1983, Barry Marshall and John Warren presented a paper to the Australian Gastroenterological Society claiming that stomach ulcers are caused by infection of Helicobacter pylori. They never finished their presentation because they were laughed off the stage. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2005 for their discovery. It took twenty-two years before they were awarded the Nobel Prize.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 2.5 million deaths are linked to unsafe care in hospitals every year. (www.news4jax.com, 2023)
The sport of tennis has long been known as being stuck in a “data dinosaur epoch” in terms of incorporating analytics and innovative technologies, but with time, comes change and evolving ideas that lead to innovation. - LORENA MARTIN, PH.D. | October 04, 2021 (USTA.com)
March 1, 2022 – Corrected four weeks after I notified them.
"We have been cocksure of many things that were not so." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"This isn't right, this isn't even wrong." - Wolfgang Pauli
"Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia."- Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.
You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bon-fire under her deck...I have no time for such nonsense. - Napoleon (commenting on Fulton's Steamship.)
Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy," -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon," -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us," -- Western Union internal memo, 1876
"The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." - Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.
... good enough for our transatlantic friends ... but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men. - British Parliamentary Committee, referring to Edison's light bulb, 1878.
"X-rays will prove to be a hoax." - Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible," -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
"It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere."- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1895.
Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. - Simon Newcomb, 1902 (1835-1909, Astronomer, Professor of Mathematics for US Navy and polymath, eighteen months before the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk.)
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." - Marechal
Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904
"Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever." - Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).
"Radio has no future." - Lord Kelvin, Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal Society, 1897
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value," -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904
"That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced."- Scientific American, Jan. 2 edition, 1909
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927
"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom." -- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will."- Albert Einstein, 1932.
"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper," - Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."
"The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine." - Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943
"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances." -- Dr. Lee DeForest, Inventor of TV
"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." -- Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project, advising President Truman on atomic weaponry, 1944.
"Very interesting Whittle, my boy, but it will never work."- Cambridge Aeronautics Professor, when shown Frank Whittle's plan for the jet engine.
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
"It will be gone by June." - Variety, passing judgement on rock 'n roll in 1955.
"Space travel is utter bilge." - Richard Van Der Riet Woolley, upon assuming the post of Astronomer Royal in 1956.
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
"Space travel is bunk." - Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of the UK, 1957 (two weeks later Sputnik orbited the Earth).
"There will never be a bigger plane built." - A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.
"We stand on the threshold of rocket mail." -– U.S. postmaster general Arthur Summerfield, in 1959.
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible," -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make," -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out," -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition."- Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962.
"There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States."- T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965).
"But what ... is it good for?" -- Engineer Robert Lloyd at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this," -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads
"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required." -- professor of electrical engineering, New York University
"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself." -- the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox
"There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” – Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, 2007
“Will crash in flames.” – Tech Author David Platt
“Will fail badly.” -Tech Journalist Bill Ray
Worst aviation disaster in history - Captain Veldhuyzen van Zanten, senior test pilot for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, began his takeoff roll without clearance from the tower. His Copilot Mears advised him that ATC had not yet given takeoff clearance. Van Zanten said, “No I know that” but continued his roll, crashing into PanAm Flight 1736, killing 583 passengers and crew members at Los Rodeos Airport, Tenerife. Flight engineer just before collision, “Is he not clear then?” Captain van Zanten, “Oh yes.” Crash.
The largest scientific experiment in history was Peer Reviewed itself and it failed
By Jo Nova
Peer Review has been a sixty year experiment with no control group.
It’s touted as the “gold standard” of science, yet the evidence shows Peer Review is an abject failure.
There are 30,000 scientific journals that publish nearly 5 million articles a year, and the only thing we know for sure is that two-thirds of papers with major flaws will still get published, fraud is almost never discovered, and peer review has effectively crushed groundbreaking new discoveries.
By Adam Mastroianni, Experimental History
The rise and fall of Peer Review
Why the greatest scientific experiment in history failed, and why that’s a great thing
For the last 60 years or so, science has been running an experiment on itself. The experimental design wasn’t great; there was no randomization and no control group. Nobody was in charge, exactly, and nobody was really taking consistent measurements. And yet it was the most massive experiment ever run, and it included every scientist on Earth.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, instead it was just rubber stamp to keep the bureaucrats safe. As government funded research took over the world of science after World War II, clueless public servants wanted expert reviewers to make sure they weren’t wasting money on something embarrassingly stupid, or fraudulent. They weren’t search for the truth, just protecting their own necks.
Scientifically, there’s no evidence supporting peer review:
Here’s a simple question: does peer review actually do the thing it’s supposed to do? Does it catch bad research and prevent it from being published?
It doesn’t. Scientists have run studies where they deliberately add errors to papers, send them out to reviewers, and simply count how many errors the reviewers catch. Reviewers are pretty awful at this. In this study reviewers caught 30% of the major flaws, in this study they caught 25%, and in this study they caught 29%. These were critical issues, like “the paper claims to be a randomized controlled trial but it isn’t” and “when you look at the graphs, it’s pretty clear there’s no effect” and “the authors draw conclusions that are totally unsupported by the data.” Reviewers mostly didn’t notice.
Life expectancy in 2022 was 78.99 years
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life-expectancy#
These published health experts died long before the average American:
And the chief priests and the scribes stood, vehemently accusing him. (Jesus) Luke 23:10 [And Jesus was crucified.]
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”- Max Planck, Nobel Laureate in Physics
The Semmelweis reflex or "Semmelweis effect" is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.[1]
The term derives from the name of Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician who discovered in 1847 that childbed fever mortality rates fell ten-fold when doctors disinfected their hands with a chlorine solution before moving from one patient to another, or, most particularly, after an autopsy. (At one of the two maternity wards at the university hospital where Semmelweis worked, physicians performed autopsies on every deceased patient.) Semmelweis's procedure saved many lives by stopping the ongoing contamination of patients (mostly pregnant women) with what he termed "cadaverous particles", twenty years before germ theory was discovered.[2] Despite the overwhelming empirical evidence, his fellow doctors rejected his hand-washing suggestions, often for non-medical reasons. For instance, some doctors refused to believe that a gentleman's hands could transmit disease.[3]
In the preface to the fiftieth anniversary edition of his book The Myth of Mental Illness, Thomas Szasz says that Semmelweis's biography impressed upon him at a young age, a "deep sense of the invincible social power of false truths."[5]
In 1983, Barry Marshall and John Warren presented a paper to the Australian Gastroenterological Society claiming that stomach ulcers are caused by infection of Helicobacter pylori. They never finished their presentation because they were laughed off the stage. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2005 for their discovery. It took twenty-two years before they were awarded the Nobel Prize.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 2.5 million deaths are linked to unsafe care in hospitals every year. (www.news4jax.com, 2023)
The sport of tennis has long been known as being stuck in a “data dinosaur epoch” in terms of incorporating analytics and innovative technologies, but with time, comes change and evolving ideas that lead to innovation. - LORENA MARTIN, PH.D. | October 04, 2021 (USTA.com)
March 1, 2022 – Corrected four weeks after I notified them.
"We have been cocksure of many things that were not so." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"This isn't right, this isn't even wrong." - Wolfgang Pauli
"Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia."- Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.
You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bon-fire under her deck...I have no time for such nonsense. - Napoleon (commenting on Fulton's Steamship.)
Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy," -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon," -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us," -- Western Union internal memo, 1876
"The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." - Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.
... good enough for our transatlantic friends ... but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men. - British Parliamentary Committee, referring to Edison's light bulb, 1878.
"X-rays will prove to be a hoax." - Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible," -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
"It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere."- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1895.
Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. - Simon Newcomb, 1902 (1835-1909, Astronomer, Professor of Mathematics for US Navy and polymath, eighteen months before the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk.)
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." - Marechal
Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904
"Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever." - Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).
"Radio has no future." - Lord Kelvin, Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal Society, 1897
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value," -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904
"That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced."- Scientific American, Jan. 2 edition, 1909
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927
"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom." -- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will."- Albert Einstein, 1932.
"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper," - Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."
"The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine." - Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943
"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances." -- Dr. Lee DeForest, Inventor of TV
"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." -- Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project, advising President Truman on atomic weaponry, 1944.
"Very interesting Whittle, my boy, but it will never work."- Cambridge Aeronautics Professor, when shown Frank Whittle's plan for the jet engine.
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
"It will be gone by June." - Variety, passing judgement on rock 'n roll in 1955.
"Space travel is utter bilge." - Richard Van Der Riet Woolley, upon assuming the post of Astronomer Royal in 1956.
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
"Space travel is bunk." - Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of the UK, 1957 (two weeks later Sputnik orbited the Earth).
"There will never be a bigger plane built." - A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.
"We stand on the threshold of rocket mail." -– U.S. postmaster general Arthur Summerfield, in 1959.
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible," -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make," -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out," -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition."- Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962.
"There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States."- T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965).
"But what ... is it good for?" -- Engineer Robert Lloyd at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this," -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads
"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required." -- professor of electrical engineering, New York University
"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself." -- the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox
"There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” – Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, 2007
“Will crash in flames.” – Tech Author David Platt
“Will fail badly.” -Tech Journalist Bill Ray
Worst aviation disaster in history - Captain Veldhuyzen van Zanten, senior test pilot for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, began his takeoff roll without clearance from the tower. His Copilot Mears advised him that ATC had not yet given takeoff clearance. Van Zanten said, “No I know that” but continued his roll, crashing into PanAm Flight 1736, killing 583 passengers and crew members at Los Rodeos Airport, Tenerife. Flight engineer just before collision, “Is he not clear then?” Captain van Zanten, “Oh yes.” Crash.
The largest scientific experiment in history was Peer Reviewed itself and it failed
By Jo Nova
Peer Review has been a sixty year experiment with no control group.
It’s touted as the “gold standard” of science, yet the evidence shows Peer Review is an abject failure.
There are 30,000 scientific journals that publish nearly 5 million articles a year, and the only thing we know for sure is that two-thirds of papers with major flaws will still get published, fraud is almost never discovered, and peer review has effectively crushed groundbreaking new discoveries.
By Adam Mastroianni, Experimental History
The rise and fall of Peer Review
Why the greatest scientific experiment in history failed, and why that’s a great thing
For the last 60 years or so, science has been running an experiment on itself. The experimental design wasn’t great; there was no randomization and no control group. Nobody was in charge, exactly, and nobody was really taking consistent measurements. And yet it was the most massive experiment ever run, and it included every scientist on Earth.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, instead it was just rubber stamp to keep the bureaucrats safe. As government funded research took over the world of science after World War II, clueless public servants wanted expert reviewers to make sure they weren’t wasting money on something embarrassingly stupid, or fraudulent. They weren’t search for the truth, just protecting their own necks.
Scientifically, there’s no evidence supporting peer review:
Here’s a simple question: does peer review actually do the thing it’s supposed to do? Does it catch bad research and prevent it from being published?
It doesn’t. Scientists have run studies where they deliberately add errors to papers, send them out to reviewers, and simply count how many errors the reviewers catch. Reviewers are pretty awful at this. In this study reviewers caught 30% of the major flaws, in this study they caught 25%, and in this study they caught 29%. These were critical issues, like “the paper claims to be a randomized controlled trial but it isn’t” and “when you look at the graphs, it’s pretty clear there’s no effect” and “the authors draw conclusions that are totally unsupported by the data.” Reviewers mostly didn’t notice.
