Wacky Ideas in Science
Occasionally, a highly respected scientist will propose a wacky idea. I remember in the late 1970s, Sir Fred Hoyle, a famous British astrophysicist, proposed the idea that many diseases were not passed by commonly understood ways, but arrived on Earth from space.
Hoyle claimed that the viruses and bacteria responsible for infectious diseases were really space invaders. Diseases, from the common cold to killers like bubonic plague and smallpox, all he claimed originated when infected spores fell to Earth. And he presented lots of statistical evidence on the spread of influenza in Britain to support his claim.
Because of his fame, his ideas got published, even though no one has ever observed a virus or bacterium in space, or one arriving from space.
Experts in the field of infectious diseases agree that transmission of contagious material involves spreading from one person to another. Transmission can come through the air, as in the common cold, sometimes by personal contact, like AIDS, and sometimes through an intermediate such as a mosquito, as with malaria. But all communicable diseases have one thing in common: they originate somewhere on the surface of the Earth, and they are carried by terrestrial organisms.
So next time you read a wacky suggestion coming from a famous scientist, remember it’s evidence, not credentials that establishes the truth of an idea.
In this day of information overload, it is difficult at times to sort out all the data. What is reliable information? What is fodder for tabloid headlines?
Initially, we do look at the person’s credentials. If Fred Hoyle says that disease originates in outer space or if Linus Pauling says that vitamin C will prevent the common cold, we may well be tempted to consider the source as authoritative. After all, Copernicus said that the Earth moved around a stationary sun - a very wrong-headed idea at the time, which later proved to be correct. The Germ theory of disease, pioneered by men such as Pasteur and Lister, was ridiculed by the contemporary medical and scientific community. So there are precedents for the ultimate truthfulness of seemingly wacky ideas.
However, what allowed some of these ideas to succeed was their credibility based on evidence. Galileo manufactured a telescope and saw evidence for a sun-centered theory in Jupiter’s satellites and Venus’ phases. When the death rate from childbirth and surgery declined markedly with the introduction of the medical practice of handwashing with carbolic acid, the germ theory received acceptance. Theories were backed up with proofs. It’s evidence, and not credentials, that establishes the truth of an idea.
There are various reactions to the truth claim that the man, Jesus, was God come in the flesh. Some people accept it, others believe he was just a mere mortal. Some people think he was psychotic - claiming and believing himself to be God. Still others believe that while merely human, there was a caliber about him that set him apart as distinct. He was a great moral teacher - instructing with his words, and showing by his example great moral themes. Such include love, forgiveness, caring for the weaker members of society, peace and reconciliation, other-centred living, a life of giving.
Yet C. S. Lewis points out that this latter position is the least tenable of all, although it may be the most common assumption about Jesus. He writes in his book, Mere Christianity:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic... or else he would be the Devil of Hell [the great deceiver]. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse... But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Dr. David Humphreys and Debbie Hughes
© August 2004
