Reply #48: Mediocrity

[HysteryDiagnosis]

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."

The answer to the following question is when he stops asking himself questions.... stops believing in the possible, ceases to imagine.

Editorial: WHEN IS A SCIENTIST NOT A SCIENTIST?
By Hal Fox, Editor

One of the types of scientific action that has always puzzled me has been the rejection of new scientific discoveries. Here are some examples:

1875: Gasoline in the hands of people ... would constitute a fire and explosive hazard of the first rank. ... The development of the new power may displace the use of horses, which would wreck our agriculture. Congressional Record of 1875.

1902: Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. New York Times, December 10, 1903.

1910: The popular mind often pictures gigantic flying machines speeding across the Atlantic carrying innumerable passengers in a way analogous to our modern steamships. ... It seems safe to say that such ideas are wholly visionary. William Pickering, American astronomer.

1923: There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. The glib supposition of utilizing atomic energy when our coal has run out is a completely unscientific Utopian dream, a childish bug-a-boo. Robert Millikan, Theoretical Physicist.

1937: Thus it appears that the cyclotron cannot be made to give much higher energies than those obtained thus far. Hans Bethe, in Physical Review.

1945: The biggest fool thing we've ever done. The atom bomb will never go off and I speak as an expert on explosions. Admiral William Leahy, aide to President Roosevelt.

1999: Commenting on low-energy nuclear reactions: How stupid do you think we are? My assessment of you and your colleagues is that you are complete frauds or totally mad. There is no known physical principle that would support the kind of results that you claim your technology can accomplish, nor is there any credible argument why there should be such a principle. Name of scientist withheld in hope of a return to sanity.

As a scientist, as an inventor, as the former director of a research laboratory, as a former missile system engineer, I do not understand how any person can call himself or herself a scientist and exhibit such a closed mind to new scientific discoveries!