I’m thinking of things like heliocentrism where there was some modern discovery or revelation by science that invalidated a common assumption prior.
My understanding is that flat earth is more a recent phenomena but I’d love to hear some ancient ideas people now miss. Did people think trees weren’t alive? Did people think evaporation was where things simply disappeared?
I’d would love to hear these ideas.
Continental drift or just the idea that the continents move. And it makes sense, looking at a map of the earth, you can clearly see that some landmasses look like they fit together like puzzle pieces. Combined with the fossil record with also supported this, it seems obvious to us now, the continents were once all one landmass. However, back then, the issue was Alfred Wegener, who came up with continental drift, didn’t have an adequate mechanism for how it worked. The question on everyone’s mind was, if the continents moved, HOW did they move? There wasn’t a good answer. It was suggested at one point that the continents maybe just plowed through the ocean crust. But that idea doesn’t work because the ocean crust is too rigid. So without any mechanism to get it to work, many geologists simply dismissed the idea. And to be fair to them, most of what Wegener claimed was indeed wrong.
Further advancements in geology and technology allowed for a better understanding of the earth. A key finding was paleomagnetic stripes on the ocean floor which proved that the earth’s crust, and the continents must be moving. This, combined with other evidence helped construct the modern theory of plate tectonics.
This isn’t exactly a ‘science debate’ but I’ve met several people that still think the ‘Great Wall is the only man made object visible from orbit.’ I read somewhere that may come from a dream some Chinese king had like 1000 years ago.
Almost crazier than flat-Earth in terms of being easily disprovable just by thinking about it for 20 seconds, but people have stated that to me as a fact and were kind of incensed when I explain it’s obvious nonsense.
The funny thing about heliocentrism is, that isn’t really the modern view either. The modern view is that there are no privileged reference frames, and heliocentrism and geocentrisms are just questions of reference frame. You can construct consistent physical models from either, and for example, you’ll probably use a geocentric model if you’re gonna launch a satellite.
But another fun one is the so-called discovery of oxygen, which is really about what’s going on with fire. Before Lavoisier, the dominant belief was that fire is the release of phlogiston. What discredited this was the discovery of materials that get heavier when burned.
