Jeff Medcalf
2010-01-21 06:51:08
Here’s a question I wish were asked more often: what is the most “settled” science in human history? What scientific, rational theory has best stood the test of time? What is the gold standard for “settled” science?
The answer, the theory that held sway for more than 2000 years, is the Aristotelian universe, with the Earth in the center and all other heavenly bodies revolving around it in perfect circles.
I think, though I’m not positive about this, that second place (more than 200 years, perhaps almost 300) was the Newtonian view of mechanics.
Note that the first is now known to be utterly wrong, and the second to be within measurement error only in special cases.
