There is no perfect invention; every scientific invention is subject to some degree of error. We shall be going back into time to narrate some instances where science got it completely wrong. If you’re not sure you’re moving in the right direction with your college writing assignments, you can contact vivaessays.com.
1. Homosexuality as an illness
The American Psychiatric Association came out with their findings in 1952 that homosexuality in people is caused by mental disorder. This belief was held by several people and the gays suffered some form of prejudice because of the belief. The WHO went further in 1977 to classify homosexuality as a mental illness. After decades of holding on to this false belief, the WHO reversed itself by removing homosexuality from the list of sickness disorders in people.
2. Nerve cell stagnation
For a very long time, scientists were of the wrong opinion that nerve cell can neither be recreated nor re-generated. It was generally believed that nerve cell damage within the brain cannot be reversed. Studies through neurogenesis- the birthing process of nerve cells) and neuroregeneration-the healing process of nerve cells has proven that the earlier belief was wrong.
3. Irreversible Cell Differentiation
There was also this false belief that was held by science that a skin cell is irreversible. It was believed that when one stem cell differentiates into another, the fate of it is sealed. Cloning technology has proved that this has never been the case all this long.
4. Phrenology: It was ridiculously supported by science that bumps on the forehead are an indication of the fact that the person is a serial killer an assertion that gained ground in the 19th century within the science community. By the 20th century, this theory was disproven.
5. Luminiferous Aether
It was also contrarily held that waves cannot travel in space. But light is a wave that travels through space. It was concluded at one point in time that space was filled with ether. When it was the end of the 19th century, a famous experiment proved that the theory was wrong.
6. Spontaneous Generation
The law of spontaneous generation is another area where science got it wrong at the initial stage. The fact that something just appeared by coming from nowhere is a wrongly held belief by science which has been proved wrong. The fact that complex organisms could be formed from non living things was later proved wrong.
7. Vitalism
It was wrongly delivered by science to the people that all living organisms have an energy field that gives them all that they needed to survive in life. The Vitalists failed woefully with this theory as it was discovered to be on the contrary.
8. Phlogiston
Some 18th-century scientists came out with the theory that raging fire can be put off by sucking out the phlogiston way back in early 1700. This theory was later proved wrong with the emergence of the oxygen theory of combustion with the law of conservation of mass.
9. Alchemy
It was wrongly believed by Alchemists that a philosopher’s stone can turn ordinary metal into gold. The idea of how this will work out is not even known! This theory that originated in Ancient Egypt went through several stages before it was consigned to the dustbin of history in the 19th century. This theory was believed for a long period in time and forms part of the belief of famous scientists.
10. Space smells like a fried streak
Another wrong theory which scientist wants the people to believe as a fact was the smell in space. There was this theory that space smells exactly like a fried streak. This has been proven to be a wrong theory with the disapproval of it by Astronauts.
Final take
The above were some of the beliefs that were wrongly held by science for some period in time but which was later proved wrong by scientists themselves after extra research efforts into each of the list above.