Archimedes: (born 287 v. Chr.)
While taking a bath, he realised that his body became lighter.
This is how he discovered the upward pressure, which a body experiences when it is immersed in a liquid or a gas.
His research resulted in “Archimedes’ Law” with a formula with which this upward pressure can be calculated.
Galileo Galilei (born 1564) and Newton (born 1643):
They studied gravity and freefall acceleration (among other things).
By means of observation and measurements they produced formulae with which calculations can still be made to the present day.
Gregor Mendel: (born 1822)
He studied heredity on the basis of experiments with peas among other things.
As a result of his observations he described the hereditary characteristics: the congenital differences and similarities between successive generations.
Mendel published the results of his research in 1865.
Among other things, he had discovered that certain characteristics sometimes skip a generation, i.e. for example, that a child can possess characteristics inherited from a grandparent, which are not found in the parents.
Because this was in contradiction to theories that Darwin had published seven years earlier, Mendel’s work was not accepted by science.
Only in 1901 were Mendels genetics “rediscovered” and they are now known as “Mendel’s Laws”.
In the end, science accepts the results of Mendel’s research as laws that are established in nature, even though they are not in agreement with the theory of evolution.
On this basis it can no longer be claimed that the theory of evolution has been proven. On the contrary, viewed scientifically, the theory of evolution should be rejected.
Dmitri Mendeljev: (born 1834)
Mendeljev established a periodicity in the characteristics, when chemical elements (hydrogen, oxygen, iron, sulphur, helium etc.) are classified according to rising atomic mass. He provided empty spaces in his classification for elements that had not yet been discovered at that time, such as scandium, gallium, germanium, and he predicted their characteristics in each case.
These missing elements were indeed discovered later.
Louis Pasteur: (born 1848)
Pasteur became involved in the discussion about the “Generatio Spontanea”, which is about whether organisms can emerge spontaneously from lifeless organisms or from dead matter.
In 1668 Francesco Redi demonstrated that only living flies were responsible for the fly maggots that appeared out of corpses. He filled large pots with meat and put lids on a couple of them.
Maggots only “emerged” from the pots without lids.
In spite of this, until Louis Pasteur’s discovery in 1860, it was believed that bacteria produced themselves. However, Louis Pasteur’s research demonstrated that “not-life” cannot generate life, and that only living beings can produce life. He carried out an experiment whereby he warmed soup up, and after heating there was no more sign of the Generatio Spontanea, moreover: bacteria are killed by heating.
This is called “pasteurisation”.
Pasteur’s experiment is repeated successfully millions of times a day. The canned food industry makes grateful and successful use of Pasteur’s discovery.
Notice that Pasteur carried out his experiments a year after the publication of Darwin’s book.
Pasteur demonstrated that a basic principle of the theory of evolution is flawed.
Even if it were to be proved that the world came into existence through a Big-Bang, the dead matter would not have been able to produce life.
Viewed scientifically, this discovery marks the end of the theory of evolution.
Albert Einstein: (born 1879)
Einstein is known above all for his “theory of relativity”, in which he claims that time is not an absolute quantity.
I had always wondered how Einstein, as a mathematician and a physicist, was able to deduce that from calculations. When reading his biography it appears that he came to this conclusion by thinking about what happens with a bouncing ball in a train.
To a traveller in the train, the ball makes vertical movements, up and down. To a traveller who is standing on the platform and sees the same train go past, this same ball rather makes a kind of sawtooth movement, and thus apparently covers a longer distance in the same time.
It would take quite a lot to explain this completely, but Einstein concluded that time is not constant quantity.
The “theory of relativity” was therefore originally only a supposition.
Einstein’s mathematics teacher, Hermann Minkowski, gave this theory a mathematical formula.
Einstein published his theory of relativity in 1905, without its receiving any great acclaim.
In 1919, when studying sunrays during an eclipse of the sun, it was confirmed that rays of light are bent by gravity. That was one of the conclusions Einstein had formulated, as a result of his theory of relativity.
His theory of relativity was accepted generally, and Einstein became world famous, only when the truth of this was proven scientifically.
General remarks:
The above-mentioned examples show that scientific truth comes about in two ways:
– By observation and experimentation.
– By suppositions, or theories, which are only accepted after they have been proven scientifically.
(Because of this Einstein had to wait 14 years for recognition.)
The theory of evolution does not satisfy these conditions and cannot be considered scientifically proven.
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Some examples from the history of science.