The Ten Most Disturbing Scientific Discoveries
Scientists have come to some surprising conclusions about the world and our place in it. Are some things just better left unknown?
- By Laura Helmuth
- Smithsonian.com, May 14, 2010, Subscribe
Science can be glorious; it can bring clarity to a chaotic world. But big scientific discoveries are by nature counterintuitive and sometimes shocking. Here are ten of the biggest threats to our peace of mind.
1. The Earth is not the center of the universe.
We’ve had more than 400 years to get used to the idea, but it’s still a little unsettling. Anyone can plainly see that the Sun and stars rise in the east, sweep across the sky and set in the west; the Earth feels stable and stationary. When Copernicus proposed that the Earth and other planets instead orbit the Sun,
… his contemporaries found his massive logical leap “patently absurd,” says Owen Gingerich of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “It would take several generations to sink in. Very few scholars saw it as a real description of the universe.”
Galileo got more grief for the idea than Copernicus did. He used a telescope to provide evidence for the heliocentric theory, and some of his contemporaries were so disturbed by what the new invention revealed—craters on a supposedly perfectly spherical moon, other moons circling Jupiter—that they refused to look through the device. More dangerous than defying common sense, though, was Galileo’s defiance of the Catholic Church. Scripture said that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and the Holy Office of the Inquisition found Galileo guilty of heresy for saying otherwise.
2. The microbes are gaining on us.
Antibiotics and vaccines have saved millions of lives; without these wonders of modern medicine, many of us would have died in childhood of polio, mumps or smallpox. But some microbes are evolving faster than we can find ways to fight them.
The influenza virus mutates so quickly that last year’s vaccination is usually ineffective against this year’s bug. Hospitals are infested with antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus bacteria that can turn a small cut into a limb- or life-threatening infection. And new diseases keep jumping from animals to humans—ebola from apes, SARS from masked palm civets, hantavirus from rodents, bird flu from birds, swine flu from swine. Even tuberculosis, the disease that killed Frederic Chopin and Henry David Thoreau, is making a comeback, in part because some strains of the bacterium have developed multi-drug resistance. Even in the 21st century, it’s quite possible to die of consumption.
3. There have been mass extinctions in the past, and we’re probably in one now.
Paleontologists have identified five points in Earth’s history when, for whatever reason (asteroid impact, volcanic eruptions and atmospheric changes are the main suspects), mass extinctions eliminated many or most species.
The concept of extinction took a while to sink in. Thomas Jefferson saw mastodon bones from Kentucky, for example, and concluded that the giant animals must still be living somewhere in the interior of the continent. He asked Lewis and Clark to keep an eye out for them.
Today, according to many biologists, we’re in the midst of a sixth great extinction. Mastodons may have been some of the earliest victims. As humans moved from continent to continent, large animals that had thrived for millions of years began to disappear—mastodons in North America, giant kangaroos in Australia, dwarf elephants in Europe. Whatever the cause of this early wave of extinctions, humans are driving modern extinctions by hunting, destroying habitat, introducing invasive species and inadvertently spreading diseases.
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Comments (237)
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Umm, there's clearly a correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature. The global (historical) sea-surface temperature curve indeed matches the historical CO2 curve (as measured in ice-cores). However, if CO2 were the cause of global temperature changes, the CO2 curve would preceded the sea-surface temperature curve. It does not (it follows it). Think about a soda. Warm up the soda and CO2 bubbles exit the drink. Cool down the soda and it absorbs CO2. This is what the ocean is doing - reacting to global temperature, which means Science hasn't proven that we've done anything to the climate for the next century ... which is why the claim "human caused climate change is unresovled" is true.
Posted by William T. on April 22,2013 | 03:38 PM
There is no record of 'sati,' the custom of burying a pharaoh's retainers and favorites alive with him, since the first few pharaohs of Egypt's First Dynasty, some 4,800 years ago. The practice, also discovered under the ruins of Ur in modern Iraq, didn't last there, either. Even absolute rulers couldn't enforce this level of obedience after their deaths. After all, the ones in the best positions to put these commands into effect would be the same ones who died in the process. And, as North Korea's Kim Jong On is now discovering, getting rid of all of your predecessor's top people isn't the best recipe for a long and successful rule.
Posted by allan on April 5,2013 | 09:36 PM
Alright, I like this article a lot. Especially number 4 - I've been sharing this tidbit with any friend willing to listen. However, one friend brought up the point that kept us... debating for awhile. He claims that this is, while interesting and plausible, total conjecture, and that one cannot actually prove that "human taste preferences evolved during times of scarcity." We have, so far, agreed to disagree, but I would like to follow up. What research or proof can support the above claim? I appreciate any input.
Posted by Ally on March 19,2013 | 08:13 PM
#10 If as you state we are expanding faster and faster then in time we will be moving fast enough to be going back in time. Now tell me how this is possible. It can not be both ways at the same time. At a point of that time we will be at a resonate point where we will say oh I am getting younger no older no younger, but at that point in time we will be going back in time so we will have no clue that we were there before.If we are expanding faster and faster in regards to what. Yes our population in whole are getting bigger bellies. Are you saying our universe is expanding. If that is true how long will it be before the sun is so far from us that we can not see it. Maybe you are saying that no the sun is moving with us as we expand. Maybe it is time that is expanding or is it someones head.
Posted by tom on March 14,2013 | 01:21 PM
"Our ape ancestry conflicts with every culture’s creation myth and isn’t particularly intuitive, but everything we’ve learned since then—in biology, geology, genetics, paleontology, even chemistry and physics—supports his great insight." The above statement from the article is a bold-faced lie. Many, many discoveries contradict the evolutionary model, and require twisting of the facts, speculation, special pleading, etc to make it fit into the evolution paradigm. I guess the writer of this article is, like most people, unaware of the mountain of evidence that contradicts evolutionism, and should take the time to read the "Evolution cruncher" book or its companion website http://www.evolutionfacts.com/ where you will read of this evidence, as well as hundreds of quotes by evolutionary scientists themselves expressing dismay and confusion dissatisfaction about their own evolutionary theories. The debate between creationism and evolutionism may rage on for a while yet, but the alleged conclusiveness of evolutionism is far from true but merely wishful thinking on the part of those who just cannot accept the alternative.
Posted by Henry Velthuizen on March 12,2013 | 05:32 PM
I really like knowin about the Science discoveries. The ten most disturbin discoveries, I've found them really informative. I already knew some of them but had been wantin to know rest of them as well.. Thanks loads!
Posted by Ayesha Qureshi on March 5,2013 | 08:38 AM
This article was rather poorly written and researched. For one, climate change is a VERY complex interrelationship of influences(see #10 for a clue if you want one). The article also makes specific presumptions about the readership, which I resent - and I'm not even a scientist. I expected better from Smithsonian.
Posted by Jon Snow on February 24,2013 | 04:54 PM
Umm... we are not apes. We (and apes) evolved from a common ape-like ancestor. Now give me my bannana.
Posted by Brian on February 21,2013 | 12:51 AM
I'm no expert on the field of cosmology but I thought that according to Hubble's Law the universe was expanding uniformly such that everywhere was the centre of the universe. So if that is the case then the Earth is the centre of the universe....it's just it's not the only centre. Maybe someone who knows more on the subject could explain that better or tell me i'm wrong.
Posted by Alan Laing on February 8,2013 | 05:27 PM
Why do so many Christians who disagree with everything written here still read the articles and comment? I'm just curious. Posted by kiernan on January 29,2013 | 02:57 AM Kierman, Its because those who agree with certain aspects of this article are most likely NOT Christians. What about death? Is the E.T. dead too? Therefore, the answer to this question comes from the One who Fashioned us for this very purpose: 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5 New International Version (NIV) Awaiting the New Body 5 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.5 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
Posted by Jeff on February 7,2013 | 08:38 PM
Darwin? Darwin did you say? Poppycock and feathers, I say. Be off with him already!
Posted by Thom McCan on February 7,2013 | 07:46 AM
E=mc² is from Poincaré
Posted by bud on February 7,2013 | 05:05 AM
I'd like to think that dark matter and dark energy will, somehow, become sufficiently understood that they can be a solution to some of our problems.
Posted by Nicholas on February 6,2013 | 09:18 PM
My Question: Will the melting of Arctic ice change the balance of the world? Will it wobble? Will it move? Will the changing of the seasons be gradually altered by this? Will Chinese, Thorium LFTR and Thorium fission technologies really "Alter The Gobal Energy Maps Forever"?
Posted by Uncle B on February 6,2013 | 09:12 PM
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