[landotter]

On Dec 10, 2:42*pm, Spender wrote:
On Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:34:30 -0600, flipper wrote:
In the first place, whether someone else does, or does not, have 'the
right answer' has no bearing on your pet conjecture. Or, put another
way, ignorance of the 'correct answer' does not mean the one you
dreamed up is correct. Case in point: earth as the center of the
universe surrounded by crystal spheres was not only 'the consensus'
for hundreds of years but it actually *worked*. You could predict the
future position of the known heavenly bodies and, by golly, that's
where they'd be.

A perfectly good theory... except for being completely wrong.

Or a more recent example. The scientific consensus around 1900 was that
although atoms seemed to work as a theoretical model of matter, they
couldn't possibly be real.

That would be a lie.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom#Or...entific_theory