They Didn't Believe It
Being human, we often reject or ignore important new facts and discoveries, but we maintain beliefs and superstitions even when they are shown to be untrue. Consider the enduring belief in astrology, the End Days, a flat Earth (just google flat earth.org), and the belief that standard childhood inoculations cause autism.
Here is a short list of scientific discoveries that were rejected or resisted when they were introduced, including: the sun as the center of the solar system, evolution, acid rain, DDT’s impact on wildlife, the Big Bang, continental drift and tectonic plates, the cause of cholera, climate change. Check the alphabetical list below for many other examples.
Compounds emitted by smokestakes, vehicles and aircraft are deposited by rain, destroying the environment and corroding even stone and metal.
Each particle has a opposite form, its anti-particle, a discovery that has had wide-ranging effects
Biologists disputed the classification of "extremophiles" for 20 years, despite the evidence.
a fiber valued for its many practical applications has a long history of deadly impact
The concept that all matter is composed of an invisible but fundamental entity was resisted for a very long time.
A theory we acept today was originally rejected by most physicists
Proof that massive stars would form black holes was rejected because of bias.
The undeniable facts of the human impact on global climate are still being resisted
The explanation for the geological relationship between continents was originally heresy
A poison that was initially considered a solution to disease-bearing insects and harmless to humans and animals became lethal
The evidence for a 4-billion-years-old Earth was a serious contradiction of the widely held Biblical view
The origin of the heavy elements was not understood until the 1950s
One of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time still meets resistance today
A concept that was originally treated with skeptism is widely accepted today
The notion that invisible organisms cause disease was very difficult to accept
Evidence for ancient glaciers and their rocky deposits conflicted with the 18th century's Biblical perspective
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What is so obvious to us was not understood until Ben Franklin's famous 1752 demonstration.
Geologists did not understand that massive meteorites could vaporize on impact
The idea of neutrinos was originally dismissed as "too remote from reality"
Even the great Thomas Gold could not convince a leading science organization to consider neutron stars
Evidence for destruction of the ozone hole was rejected for decades
The unexpected and unlikely nature of the photon was hard to believe
The correct interpretation of light spectra from stars was presented by a young researcher whose evidence was initially rejected.
Bruno was burned at the stake for asserting that the Sun was one of countless stars in an infinite universe
Lynn Margulis's theory of how microbe combinations led to complex cells in evolution was rejected by the scientific establishment for years.
