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© Copyright 2000, Jim Loy
One of the common features of people who believe strange things is a contempt for scientists. Of course, scientists are human, and can be very silly, especially when they make statements outside their area of expertise. Even within their areas of expertise, they can make embarrassing mistakes that look pretty stupid. But the contempt that I am talking about is a more general contempt.
When astronomers mention the Big Bang, many people think that these astronomers are being stupid. If you do not believe that the Big Bang happened, then your most logical attitude is that astronomers are mistaken, not that they are being stupid. These scientists are not making a guess about the Big Bang. They have huge quantities of data. The theory has been hashed over, considered and reconsidered and tested for decades. It makes no sense to call this idea stupid.
Physicists say that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (with one possible exception). This is not a guess or a hopeful belief. They have the strongest of evidence to back this up. Any physicist would like nothing better than to discover a way to travel faster than the speed of light. But nature shoots them down, and the mathematics say that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. They may be wrong, but these physicists are not being stupid.
There are famous cases in which the scientific community was wrong. There are no canals on Mars, although many astronomers reported seeing them. And scientists will be wrong in the future, too. They are certainly wrong about some things right now. While scientists were wrong, they were still being logical. There were solid reasons for their mistaken theories. It is easy to say, "How could they have been so stupid?" But they were not being stupid. See Phlogiston Theory.
Why do I bring this up? What difference does it make whether you say a scientist is "wrong" or "stupid?" I think that you can correct yourself. Scientists say something, and you say to yourself, "That can't be right. That's stupid." I am reminding you that it is not stupid. Whether they are right or wrong, you are the one with the misconception.