From: Tedd Hadley <hadley@reliant.yxi.com>
> "If an old, respected scientist tells you something is possible,
> he's almost certainly right. But if an old, respected scientist
> tells you something is impossible, he's very likely wrong."
>
> -- (someone)
"If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible
he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is
very probably wrong."
— Arthur C. Clarke, in the 'New Yorker' magazine, 9 August 1969.
Those like Stephen Jones and DNAUnion who, based on the limitations of our
present knowledge, conclude that naturalistic abiogenesis is impossible may
like to heed the fate of some past conclusions of impossibility...
"It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or
three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine]
problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere."
— Thomas Edison, 1895
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
— Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895.
"Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if
not utterly impossible."
— Simon Newcomb, Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins
University, 1902.
"All attempts at artificial aviation are not only dangerous to life but
doomed to failure from an engineering standpoint."
— editor of 'The Times' of London, 1905.
"In the opinion of competent experts it is idle to look for a commercial
future for the flying machine. There is, and always will be, a limit to its
carrying capacity.... Some will argue that because a machine will carry two
people, another may be constructed that will carry a dozen, but those who
make this contention do not understand the theory."
— W. J. Jackman and Thomas Russell, 'Flying Machines: Construction and
Operation,' 1910.
"The whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space] . . . presents
difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss the
notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author's insistent
appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed impossibility of
heavier-than-air flight before it was actually accomplished."
— Sir Richard van der Riet Wooley, British astronomer, reviewing P.E.
Cleator's 'Rockets in Space', Nature, March 14, 1936
"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific
advances."
— Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the Audion tube and a father of radio, 25
February, 1967.
"There cannot always be fresh fields of conquest by the knife; there must be
portions of the human frame that will ever remain sacred from its
intrusions, at least in the surgeon's hands. That we have already, if not
quite, reached these final limits, there can be little question. The
abdomen, the chest, and the brain will be forever shut from the intrusion of
the wise and humane surgeon."
— Sir John Erichsen, surgeon, 1873
"....that any general systems of conveying passengers would answer, to go at
a velocity exceeding 10 miles an hour, or thereabouts, is extremely
improbable."
— Tredgold, Thomas. Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads and Carriages.
"Inventions reached their limit long ago, and I see no hope for further
development."
— Julius Frontinus, 1st century A.D.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
— Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
Richard Wein (Tich)
--------------------------------
"Do the calculation. Take the numbers seriously. See if the underlying
probabilities really are small enough to yield design."
-- W. A. Dembski, who has never presented any calculation to back up his
claim to have detected Intelligent Design in life.
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