I wrote:
> People will not forget that the experts were wrong. Robert Park and Frank > Close will be a laughingstock for centuries to come, the way the Rev. > Wilburforce is, for debating T. H. Huxley about evolution and making an ass > of himself. > That sorta contradicts what I wrote earlier that people will forget the conflicts. I meant they will forget the details. History usually reduces to mythology. The only thing people remember William "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce is the time he supposedly made a fool of himself debating Huxley. (Some witnesses dispute Huxley's account, but it makes a great story and the winners get to write history, so what harm?) People know that the Titanic was supposedly unsinkable, but it sank anyway. They are vaguely aware that around 1900 it was often said "you can no more do that than you can fly!" and that the Wright brothers were not believed at first. The details are lost. Books like "The Experts Speak" are popular with the public because they seem to demonstrate that experts are often wrong and make fools of themselves. I am pretty sure that future books in this genre will include quotes such as: "It would not matter to me if a thousand other investigations were to subsequently perform experiments that see excess heat. These results may all be correct, but it would be an insult to these investigators to connect them with Pons and Fleischmann." (Ballinger) "Most screwy ideas turn out to be screwy ideas .. [cold fusion} was preposterous to begin with." (Park) "I have had 50 years of experience in nuclear physics and I know what's possible and what's not. . . . I don't want to see any more evidence! I think it's a bunch of *junk* and I don't want to have anything further to do with it." (Feshbach) I do not think much of "The Experts Speak" by the way. It is snarky and often wrong. Most of the quotes are not from experts, but from people who imagined themselves to be experts and were not. Others are from real experts who were right. They seem to be wrong because they are taken out of context. The authors of that book know little about history. - Jed
