Scientific Myths: Icons of Falsehood
"A lie told often enough becomes the truth." — Lenin
Textbooks still teach experiments that were debunked 50 years ago. Why? Because they have no replacement.
1. The "Zombie Science" List
These are arguments that are dead scientifically, but kept alive in classrooms to indoctrinate students.
Myth 1: The Miller-Urey Experiment (1953)
The Claim: They created "Life in a test tube" by sparking gases.
The Truth:
1. They used the wrong atmosphere (Hydrogen-rich). The early earth was Nitrogen/CO2 based.
2. They created Amino Acids (building blocks), not Proteins. Finding a brick is not finding a Skyscraper.
3. It created a "tar" that kills life.
Myth 2: Haeckel's Embryos
The Claim: Human embryos look like fish/lizards in the womb, proving ancestry.
The Truth:
Ernst Haeckel faked the drawings in 1874 to make them look similar. He was convicted of fraud by his own university.
Yet, these drawings appeared in textbooks until the 2000s.
Myth 3: "Junk DNA"
The Claim: 98% of our DNA is useless "leftovers" from evolution.
The Truth:
The ENCODE Project (2012) proved that "Junk" DNA is actually the Operating System (Regulatory Switches) of the cell.
It was an "Argument from Ignorance": We didn't know what it did, so we called it junk.
2. The Vestigial Organ Fallacy
They used to list 100+ "useless" organs (Appendix, Tonsils, Coccyx) as proof of evolution.
Today, we know the functions of almost all of them.
The Appendix: A safehouse for good bacteria (Gut Flora).
The Tonsils: First line of defense for the immune system.
References & Further Reading
- Icons of EvolutionSystematically debunks Miller-Urey, Haeckel, and Peppered Moths.
- The Myth of Junk DNAHow the ENCODE project destroyed the evolutionary assumption.
- Zombie ScienceWhy dead theories refuse to die.