The Jury Talks Back

1/17/2009

Extrinsic Incubation

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amphipolis @ 2:17 pm

 

David McCullough on the time it took for people to accept the proven fact that malaria and yellow fever are spread by mosquitos:

In the conventional understanding of history, human advancement is marked by specific momentous steps: on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers fly in a heavier-than-air machine and at once a new age dawns; in a hospital ward outside Havana Dr. Jesse Lazear dies a martyr’s death and the baffling horror of yellow jack is at last resolved. But seldom does it happen that way. Ideas too have their period of extrinsic incubation, and particularly if they run contrary to what has always seemed common sense. In the case of the Wright brothers, it was five years after Kitty Hawk before the world accepted the idea that their machine could fly.

The Path Between the Seas p 422

6 Comments

  1. It took medicine 25-50 years to accept the importance of hand-washing to reduce the risk of infection in health care and surgery. People don’t like sudden change, but then again sudden change is rarely a good idea.

    Comment by DRJ — 1/17/2009 @ 6:24 pm

  2. In far too many communities in America today,
    death is a sudden change.

    Comment by AD — 1/17/2009 @ 8:15 pm

  3. People change when they have too.

    Comment by Alan Kellogg — 1/18/2009 @ 12:22 am

  4. People don’t like sudden change, but then again sudden change is rarely a good idea.

    Sombody please tell Obama.

    Comment by Dr. K — 1/18/2009 @ 4:51 am

  5. Lazear and the Wright brothers are innovators that could prove their premise….eventually.

    Al Gore, Hansen and others, will also be proved out eventually. China and India (and Europe) will cause CO2 levels to rise, no matter what the US does. And when the AGT (average global temperature) does not rise the gullible media and public will finally notice. When that happens, I hope that Gore and company are roasted.

    Comment by Jack — 1/18/2009 @ 5:31 am

  6. Ideas have momentum. It takes a lot of effort to turn well established ones from their usual paths.

    Facts alone are not enough.

    Comment by Amphipolis — 1/20/2009 @ 5:30 am

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.


Powered by WordPress.