List of popular misconceptions about science

There are many stories that might be called scientific mythology, which describe events or discoveries in science that may or may nor have actually happened, but that are instructive or enlightening, and therefore often retold (see mythology).

One point of view is myths concerning science are not a good thing.

In the attempt to fit the history of science into a tale with a moral lesson,

there is a tendency to simplify complex historical realities, and this tends to give

the general public a misimpression about what scientists do and how the process

of science works.

For example scientific myths often contain an inspired "heroic" genius,

and this obscures the role of social communication and collaboration in the scientific

process as well as contributes to the perception that science is too hard for mere

mortals to undertake.

Also, scientific myths often contain an "evil" establishment,

and this obscures the fact that there are often good reasons why the establishment believes

what it does and that in many cases, the established view turns out to be correct.

Scientific myths also tend to either overstate or understate the role of chance in

scientific discovery, and the tendency to emphasis the dramatic, tends to understate

the incremental progress that consitutes most scientific advancement.

Also in the effort to create a dramatic story, scientific myths tend to reduce theory

verification to one dramatic experiment which is claimed to prove a theory (i.e. Michaelson-Morley). This leads to the misperception that scientific theories are fragile in that they are based on a few crucial facts, when in fact most scientific theories are robust

in that they are based on many independent lines of evidence and can withstand cases

in which some interpretations of data later turn out to be incorrect.

• Isaac Newton's apple

• Galileo Galilei's cannonballs off the leaning tower of Pisa, and some stories about his persecution by the Catholic Church

• Archimedes' "Eureka"

• Columbus's "discovery" of America, or the round Earth

• The evolution of the Peppered Moth during the Industrial Revolution

/Talk