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When science takes a wrong turn, humanity pays the price! Join us as we examine the greatest scientific blunders that significantly delayed progress or caused major historical consequences. From phantom substances to rejected theories, these weren't just honest mistakes - they were conceptual walls that slowed human advancement for decades or even centuries.
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00:00Lavoisier had challenged the very foundation of chemistry, and he'd identified the source
00:06of that weight gain.
00:07Error was somehow involved.
00:09Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at scientific blunders and false theories
00:14that significantly delayed progress or caused major historical consequences.
00:18These mistakes remind us progress isn't just about discovery, but sometimes just admitting
00:22that you are wrong.
00:23Wow.
00:25This beds the jackpot here.
00:28Aether Theory.
00:29The instrument had all the stability and sensitivity they had hoped for, and should be able easily
00:35to detect the tiny expected difference in travel time of the two beams of light due to motion
00:41through the aether.
00:42For centuries, scientists believed light needed a physical medium to travel through.
00:47They called it the Luminiferous Aether, an elegant sounding invisible substance, which ultimately
00:51did not exist.
00:53This phantom aether was written into textbooks and experiments, forcing physicists to twist
00:57their findings to fit a false assumption.
00:59The 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment proved no aether existed, but many clung to the idea
01:05anyway.
01:06scientists delayed acceptance of a major scientific breakthrough in Albert Einstein's special
01:10relativity, which fundamentally redefined space, time, and motion.
01:15The aether theory wasn't just a bad guess, it was a conceptual wall that scientific giants
01:19had to demolish before modern physics could truly begin.
01:23The truth is that either way, success or failure, the results of Michelson's experiment, would
01:29have faced physics with a grave dilemma.
01:31Einstein's cosmological constant.
01:46Albert Einstein wasn't done with physics after coming up with special relativity.
01:50He also developed general relativity, and with it, introduced a cosmological constant
01:55to force the universe to be a static entity.
01:57Einstein believed the universe neither expanded nor contracted.
02:01Ironically, his equations naturally predicted expansion, but he edited reality to match assumptions.
02:07When Edwin Hubble proved the universe was expanding, Einstein reportedly called the constant his greatest
02:11blunder.
02:12No force in the history of cosmology has ever been discovered to be that finely tuned.
02:19The cosmological constant needs to be set to one part in a trillion, trillion, trillion,
02:24trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.
02:30Otherwise the universe would be so drastically different that it would be impossible for us
02:35to evolve.
02:36The mistake delayed cosmologists from embracing the idea of an evolving universe and its birth
02:40in a big bang.
02:42Shockingly, modern physics later revived the cosmological constant to describe dark energy.
02:47Weirdly, this proved Einstein was both wrong and ahead of his time.
02:51Sometimes, even genius fumbles rewrite cosmology.
02:54You'd think with all the great successes of the big bang, we'd be happy.
02:58We wouldn't be complaining.
02:59But we are.
03:00We're concerned.
03:01There's a problem with the big bang.
03:03And the problem is, we shouldn't be here.
03:07Rejection of Lister's antiseptic surgery methods.
03:09For years, he had been worried about the high death rate of patients whose wounds turn septic
03:14after operations.
03:16So when a colleague, a professor of chemistry, told him about Pasteur's work, he seized on
03:21the idea that microorganisms might carry infection.
03:25In the 1860s, British surgeon Joseph Lister introduced antiseptic protocols in surgery.
03:30He began using carbolic acid solutions, applying it to wounds, and recognized its ability to reduce
03:36surgical infections.
03:37Unfortunately, Lister's fellow surgeons mocked his practice.
03:41They were unwilling to believe what they could not see, that unseen microbes caused post-operative
03:45deaths.
03:46It was a rejection that came at the cost of thousands of lives worldwide.
03:50Hospitals continued operating with unwashed hands and filthy instruments.
03:54Eventually, germ theory would prove Lister right.
03:56The delay meant simple procedures remained a lethal gamble.
03:59Lister didn't just fight bacteria.
04:01He fought scientific pride and arrogance, making this one of medicine's deadliest dismissals.
04:17Lead is an old and well-documented poison.
04:23As early as the year 100 BC, it was common knowledge in ancient Rome that lead could cause insanity
04:29and eventually incur death.
04:32Engineers in the 1920s began adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline to prevent engine knocking.
04:37Initially received and celebrated as a miracle fuel additive, scientists could see through the
04:42veil of illusions and recognized it as a potent neurotoxin.
04:45These warnings were ignored.
04:47For decades, cars spewed the invisible poison across every major city, contaminating air,
04:52soil, and generations of children.
04:55Modern studies linked leaded fuel to decreased IQ, increased crime rates, and global health
04:59damage.
05:00Thomas Midgley Jr., who helped popularize leaded gas, became infamous as one of history's
05:05most harmful inventors.
05:06This wasn't just an innocent mistake.
05:08Rather, it was profit over public health, with measurable consequences to date.
05:13It seems to me that it's ironic that we end up with ethanol now as a major answer, not
05:19the only answer, but as one of the big answers to the fuel problem and the anti-NOC problem
05:25in a way that was perfectly obvious to people in the 1920s.
05:30Benzene rings structure misunderstanding.
05:32Benzene is an organic chemical compound that serves as a building block in several other
05:36important compounds.
05:37From dyes to pharmaceuticals, benzene is everywhere.
05:40For many decades, chemists proposed various theories to discern its molecular structure.
05:45None were deemed fit, and this chemical riddle stalled progress in organic chemistry.
05:49It wasn't until August Kekule dreamt of a snake biting its tail that the first semblance
05:54of a correct cyclic structure to benzene emerged.
05:57The now familiar ring of benzene opened the doors to various fields and discoveries, including
06:02synthetic chemistry, plastics, and modern medicine.
06:05Still, decades were lost to incorrect models.
06:08Benzene was a puzzle resolved at the cost of time, a chemical key withheld by misunderstanding
06:13that delayed entire industries.
06:15Phlogiston theory.
06:16All the objects in this room belonged to Lavoisier's laboratory, of course, but you can see how
06:23broad was his mind because he had a lot of other objects because he was interested in
06:29everything.
06:30Before the discovery of oxygen, all combustible materials were believed to contain phlystigen,
06:35a mysterious element released during burning.
06:37While it wasn't real, this imaginary substance became scientific dogma throughout the 17th and
06:4218th centuries.
06:43Phlogiston was the foundation of chemistry's leading theory for nearly a century because
06:48it seemed to explain things like metals and rust.
06:52Then scientists observed that some metals gained weight while burning, something clearly impossible
06:57if phlystigen were real.
06:58They couldn't come up with a good explanation for this.
07:00It took Antoine Lavoisier's experiments in 1783 to dismantle the myth and reveal oxygen's
07:05true role in combustion and respiration.
07:08Until then, scientific progress stagnated under a superstition that explained nothing yet controlled
07:14everything.
07:15The work of these previous experimenters merely hints at what's happening when air is taken
07:20up or released by different substances.
07:22I shall review all their work, repeat all their experiments, taking new precautions in order
07:28to develop a coherent theory.
07:31Denial of Continental Drift Theory.
07:33Massive forces from deep within the planet rip apart and smash these small proto-continents
07:39together as they grow into the large landmasses we see today.
07:44In 1912, Alfred Wegener proposed that Earth's continents once fit together like pieces of
07:49a jigsaw puzzle, but then it slowly drifted apart.
07:52Unfortunately, Wegener couldn't provide a mechanism to back his theory and was resoundedly
07:57laughed off the stage by the geological community.
07:59For decades, textbooks mocked Wegener's theory of continental drift as pseudoscience.
08:04Only in the 1960s did seafloor spreading and magnetic evidence vindicate Wegener.
08:09By then, a half-century of geological progress had been lost.
08:13The ridicule that ensued after Wegener's proposal delayed acceptance of plate tectonic theory.
08:17It's now foundational to our understanding of earthquakes, volcanoes, and Earth's crust.
08:22Earth's greatest scientific shift indeed began with one ignored idea.
08:27And this is what paleomagnetism is all about.
08:29We can estimate the ancient position of continents by measuring the direction of
08:33magnetization from rocks within them.
08:36Darwin's initial rejection of Mendelian genetics.
08:38For the first time, he could demonstrate that the traits of successive generations
08:43were inherited in certain numerical ratios.
08:45In other words, there were fixed laws of nature that governed heredity.
08:50Darwin's revolutionized biology with his theory of natural selection.
08:53Ironically, he also weakened his own theory by rejecting Gregor Mendel's work on heredity.
08:59Mendel had shown that hereditary traits are passed on through genes.
09:02This contradicted Darwin's belief of blended inheritance,
09:05in which offspring inherit a blend of their parents' traits.
09:08It was the prevailing model of heredity in his time, and widely accepted by the scientific community.
09:15But if traits blended completely, it also meant that everything would average out over time,
09:30and evolution wouldn't happen.
09:32Darwin sensed this flaw, but dismissed Mendel's solution, separating evolution and genetics for decades.
09:37It wasn't until the early 20th century that genetics and evolution finally united.
09:42Whatever it is that transmits heredity, it doesn't behave like a liquid.
09:48It behaves like particles.
09:50And it's not like a compound, it's more like a mixture.
09:54Ancient astronomy assumed a concept of the universe proposed by 4th century BC Greek philosopher Aristotle,
10:05who imagined the Earth at the center of the universe.
10:09For thousands of years, humanity believed that Earth sat at the center of the universe,
10:13surrounded by planets and stars that revolved about our planet.
10:16These beliefs became grounded in the geocentric models proposed by Aristotle and Ptolemy.
10:21Rather than be considered as a scientific theory, the geocentric model was seen on an equal footing
10:26as religious doctrine.
10:27When their hypotheses didn't match their observations, scholars forced the sky to fit the theory.
10:32Their stubborn belief in geocentrism stalled astronomy and humanity's own understanding of
10:36its place in the universe.
10:38It would take a trio of intellectuals in Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and Johannes Kepler
10:43to challenge this theory and ensure the emergence of true celestial mechanics.
10:48Well, maybe they didn't care at first, but when he published his book,
10:51they saw the danger it posed to their theology and they burned him alive, probably, right?
10:57Nope! In fact, the book barely showed up on the church's radar.
11:00Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
11:03Cold fusion claims that couldn't be replicated.
11:06Unverified 1989 cold fusion claims wasted millions and damaged scientific credibility.
11:11And how much energy is this baby putting out for you?
11:13Right now, about 20 watts.
11:14This is not a lot of energy.
11:16No, this is a low power test, which will give us the information we need to scale up to our goal
11:21of 10 kilowatts.
11:22And how soon do you think you could do that?
11:23Four and a half to five years.
11:24Asbestos as a miracle material.
11:26A miracle mineral turned mass carcinogen after warnings were dismissed for decades.
11:31By 1931, the link with disease was so clear, the British government passed its first asbestos
11:37regulations. They ordered that there should be no asbestos dust in the workplace.
11:42By 1935, the link between lung cancer and asbestos became recognized.
11:48The Y2K programming shortcut. Two-digit coding stoked fears of system failures
11:53and required billions of dollars to fix.
11:55Elevators may stop. Heat may vanish.
12:01Credit cards and ATMs may cease to function.
12:06Airplanes and trains may come to a halt.
12:08Steady state universe model.
12:10An elegant but wrong theory of an eternal universe delayed acceptance of the big bang.
12:15But accepting the big bang theory and thinking it flawless are two different things.
12:21There were problems with the details of the theory.
12:24Expanding problems.
12:27Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get
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12:43Scientific racism.
12:44Looking at these, we can start to imagine what it was like for 19th century men of science
12:50when they first saw Morton's beautiful, yet troubling illustrations.
12:55Humans will seemingly use any excuse they can to discriminate against and oppress each other,
12:59and scientific racism has been one of the most pernicious.
13:03This is the idea that there are biological differences between races that make some people
13:07inherently superior to others. Unsurprisingly, it gained popularity in the western world during the 1600s,
13:13when the transatlantic slave trade was taking off. It allowed enslavers to convince themselves that
13:18African people were subhuman and didn't deserve rights.
13:21You examine this piece of skull here.
13:25You'll notice three distinct dimples.
13:36In the early 1800s, white people got really into phrenology, the belief that you could determine
13:41someone's intelligence by measuring bumps on their skull. Though scientific racism has been
13:45thoroughly debunked by biologists, anthropologists, geneticists, you name it, some people still cling
13:51to these bigoted ideas today. Grant, a eugenicist, argued that evolution should not be left to chance.
13:58He lobbied for laws banning interracial marriages and limiting immigration. Laws passed by people
14:04softened up by human zoos are now susceptible to Grant's arguments. Which scientific mix do you
14:10think did the most damage? Let us know in the comments.
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