- Look, an alien watching cows.
That makes sense.
("Superconductivity" by Jahzzar)
Science is having a
terrific season right now.
The scientific method
has flown us to the moon,
extended the human lifespan,
and even put the Internet in our pockets.
But before we got to the
point we're at right now,
a lot of really brilliant people
have had some really bonehead ideas.
("Superconductivity" by Jahzzar)
Are you feeling a little
under the weather?
Maybe your phlegm-to-black-bile ratio
needs to be adjusted.
Ancient physicians like
Hippocrates used to believe
that human temperament
and health were the result
of an interplay between
the four bodily humors:
blood, phlegm, black bile,
also known as melancholy,
and yellow bile, also known as choler.
Craziest part is this whole idea
made it into the Middle Ages and beyond.
You can thank the bodily humors idea
for things like bloodletting and enemas.
("Superconductivity" by Jahzzar)
This idea would be so
creepy if it were true.
Spontaneous generation was
this widely-held belief
that higher complex organisms
could arise spontaneously
from lifeless inanimate objects.
For example, a 17th-century
Flemish physician
named Jan Baptista van Helmont
had the idea that if
you took a sweaty shirt
and put it in a box of grain,
three weeks later you would sprout mice.
I mean, how else are you
gonna explain the presence
of mice in a box of grain
left out for three weeks?
Van Helmont also had the idea that if you
took basil leaves and pressed
them between two bricks,
you could make a scorpion.
(screaming)
("Superconductivity" by Jahzzar)
Miasma theory.
Back in the mid-19th century,
London was plagued by cholera outbreaks,
and an epidemiologist of
the day named William Farr
chalked it up to miasma,
the idea that disease was
spread through things like
night vapors and foul-smelling gases,
but an English physician named
John Snow questioned miasma.
Everybody else was like,
"You know nothing John Snow,"
but John Snow won out.
He traced the cholera outbreaks
back to a public water pump
that was drawing water from
cholera-infected sewage.
Score one for germ theory.
("Superconductivity" by Jahzzar)
Yes, even Aristotle,
arguably one of the most
brilliant people who has ever lived,
had a couple of missteps along the way.
Take, for example, his
idea that different objects
will fall to Earth at different rates.
It makes sense in a way,
which is probably why
it took 2,000 years for
Galileo Galilei to come along
and smash the idea to bits.
We now know today that two objects,
regardless of their mass,
accounting for wind resistance,
will fall to Earth at
the same constant rate.
Supposedly, Galileo tested
this by dropping cannon balls
off the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
We don't know if that's true or not,
but it's a pretty great story.
What's the weirdest obsolete
science fact you've ever heard?
Let us know in the comment section below,
and don't forget to subscribe,
and check out more crazy facts
about the history of
protoscience by reading
10 Things We Thought Were True
Before the Scientific Method
at HowStuffWorks.com
(gentle music)
