Science Was Wrong: Startling Truths About Cures, Theories, And Inventions “They” Declared Impossible

by Stanton T. Friedman, Msc & Kathleen Marden

New Page Books

A division of The Career Press, Inc.

220 West Parkway, Unit 12 • Pompton Plains, NJ 07444

2010, 255 pages, US $16.99 • ISBN-13: 978-1-60163-102-2

Reviewed by Brent Raynes

Widely known and recognized nuclear physicist and UFO lecturer Stanton T. Friedman and co-author Kathleen Marden, an educator, certified hypnotherapist and the niece of the late Betty Hill (noted UFO abductee), have compiled a thought-provoking book that proves, once and for all, that scientists (even the allegedly most brilliant and academically qualified among us) can be as narrow and shallow minded, if not a bit dim witted, as any of the rest of us village idiots. The authors delve into the deep waters of aviation, space travel, electronic communications, medicine, global warming, and, of course, UFOs and psychic phenomena, and in the process expose a lot of shallow minds.

They refer to shallow minded people as “impossibilists” and they provide countless illustrative and entertaining examples. Clearly hindsight is indeed superior to foresight in science as it is everywhere else and scientists are just as capable of being as biased and judgmental as the rest of humanity.

Science is a tool used to develop proper methods and strategies for determining what is the proverbial truth about something. However, more than one or two scientists have put their proverbial foot in their mouths. Some of my favorite examples, among what seem like hundreds cited in this book, would include the following (now rather humorous) examples:

“Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value.” Marechal Foch, French Army General, 1911.

“The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.” Admiral William Leahy, advising President Truman in early 1945 about the atomic bomb project.

“I am bold enough to state that, no matter what the discoveries of the future, it will never happen.” Dr. Lee DeForrest, inventor of the vacuum tube, talking about man going to the moon. 1957.

Space travel was even called “utter bilge” in 1956 by the British Astronomer Royal Sir Richard van der Riet Wooley, who added that if we’d spend that money on quality astronomical equipment then more about the universe would be learned. Incredibly, science may even rediscover what ancient people believed centuries before us. For example, the authors cite in this book how germ theory was actually advanced thousands of years ago in Sanskrit texts, but wasn’t widely accepted by Western science until the late 19th century. It was also good to see that the late Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, a scholar of languages and the field of medicine, got the fair shake and recognition here that he deserves. Dr. Velikovsky, intrigued by ancient Biblical accounts of catastrophes as recounted in the Old Testament (i.e., the flood, plagues, the sun stopping at Jericho, etc.) decided to see if other cultures had similar stories, and he found that they did. He reported his findings in such books as Worlds in Collision, Ages in Chaos, and Earth in Upheaval. Leading mainstream astronomers viciously attacked him and even blackmailed the publisher of Worlds in Collision by threatening to purchase their textbooks elsewhere. But in the end, a number of Velikovsky’s findings and predictions came to be confirmed. For example, Velikovsky had predicted that the atmosphere of Venus was very hot (not cold as astronomers believed at the time), but then Carl Sagan himself, a former critic, was later given credit for confirming that Venus was indeed hot! Velikovsky also predicted in 1953 that the huge planet of Jupiter emitted radio waves, which astronomers thought was utter nonsense, but in 1955 it was confirmed.

Dr. Velikovsky is a good example of what can happen when an intelligent, open and creative mind is turned loose on a large collection of scientific and historical information. Velikovsky connected a matrix pattern of significant dots, but was initially attacked by establishment scientists who were unable to think outside the box of conditioned perspectives. This book also cites other brilliant and insightful pioneers who were willing to be led by the facts rather than their cultivated belief systems. There are lessons and instructions for us all within the pages of Science Was Wrong.