KypDurron

KypDurron t1_iux7scz wrote

Reply to comment by greybruce1980 in TIL that the Persian King Xerxes was so enraged after a storm destroyed his bridges that he ordered the sea be given 300 whiplashes, and branded it with red-hot irons as the soldiers shouted at the water by LethalPoopstain

That's fine, but you can't say that second- or third-hand accounts from a biased source are likely to be accurate just because they fit with what you expect to hear about someone.

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KypDurron t1_iqy0e54 wrote

Reply to comment by Super_Silky in TIL a German scientist named Alfred Wegener was ridiculed in 1912 for advancing the idea that the continents were adrift. Ridiculed as having “wandering pole plague.” or “Germanic pseudo­-science” and accused Wegener of toying with the evidence to spin himself into “a state of auto-intoxication." by Hot----------Dog

Except that the scientific community's response was perfectly justified. Science is supposed to reject new ideas that are presented without support. The entire point of the scientific method is to take people's hypotheses and attempt to prove them wrong.

Wegener's proposed mechanism for continental drift was the rotation of the earth, and he estimated that the continents were moving at approximately 250cm per year.

Just because part of his idea (that the continents move) was right doesn't mean that his claim should have been accepted uncritically. Making extraordinary claims that just happen to be correct - without actually explaining anything about it, or presenting sufficient evidence - doesn't make you a genius. It just makes you lucky.

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KypDurron t1_iqxzf88 wrote

Reply to comment by MechTheDane in TIL a German scientist named Alfred Wegener was ridiculed in 1912 for advancing the idea that the continents were adrift. Ridiculed as having “wandering pole plague.” or “Germanic pseudo­-science” and accused Wegener of toying with the evidence to spin himself into “a state of auto-intoxication." by Hot----------Dog

Exactly. You don't get to make incredible claims that change our entire understanding of the world, present absolutely nothing to back up your claim, and then complain when they say you're crazy.

Being right doesn't matter, either. If someone in the 1500's just started claiming that all matter was composed of really really small strings, and his reasoning was "I ate some bread with LSD-precursor fungus and a mouth opened up in the center of my hand and started telling me about the strings", we'd say he was crazy, even though he was (maybe) right.

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KypDurron t1_iqxyks0 wrote

Reply to comment by supercyberlurker in TIL a German scientist named Alfred Wegener was ridiculed in 1912 for advancing the idea that the continents were adrift. Ridiculed as having “wandering pole plague.” or “Germanic pseudo­-science” and accused Wegener of toying with the evidence to spin himself into “a state of auto-intoxication." by Hot----------Dog

I'm gonna call bullshit. If your teacher didn't think Pangea existed, why was she showing you a map of it?

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