Myths about Science Part 2

1. That “Social Darwinism” has had a profound influence on social thought and policy, especially in America. Despite all the talk about social Darwinism in the 20th century, 19th century Americans paid relatively little attention to the social implications of Darwinism. This was true of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) himself. Most American scientists either remained silent on the topic or denounced attempts to apply Darwinian principles to human society.
2. That the Soviet launch of Sputnik caused the revamping of American science education. The retooling of science teaching was well under way prior to the hysteria of Sputnik. The most concrete efforts were the National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored curriculum projects of the 1950s in the common high school subjects of physics,  chemistry, and biology. The first of these was the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC), a high school physics project organized by Jerrold Zacharias (1905-1986) at MIT. PSSC got its start with a grant from the NSF in 1956.
3. That religion has typically impeded the progress of science. In Galileo’s time, the Catholic Church was the major sponsor of astronomical research. Moreover, the relevant science was by no means clear-cut, with scientific authorities divided on the relative merits of competing cosmological systems. Although, there was, undoubtedly, religious resistance to the idea of evolution by natural selection, Darwinism had both significant religious supporters and influential scientific detractors. The medical universities, which were the chief sites of scientific activity in the later middle ages, were founded and supported by the Catholic Church. Key 17th century figures—such as Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), Robert Boyle (1627-1691), Isaac Newton, and John Ray (1627-1705)—were clearly motivated by religious considerations and said as much.
4. That science has been largely a solitary enterprise. Isaac Newton was wired into a vast global network of numerical data on tidal levels, the length of pendulums, and the position of comets, on which he drew to support empirically his theory of universal gravitation. This info could only have reached the shores of England through connections established by trading companies, Jesuit missionaries, astronomers, and the correspondence network of scholars known as the Republic of Letters. Natural philosophers, astronomers, mariners, dockyard workers, and traders shipped their local data to Newton, or Newton sent his emissaries to distant ports and sites to gather the quantitative info that he needed. Similarly, Charles Darwin’s evidence of biological evolution came from sources embedded in Britain’s imperial network.
5. That the “Scientific Method” accurately reflects what scientists actually do. Timing is a crucial factor in understanding the scientific method. Discussion of the best methodology with which to approach the study of nature goes back to the ancient Greeks. The “scientific method” was rarely used before the mid-nineteenth century among English speakers, and only grew to widespread public prominence from the late nineteenth to the early 20th centuries, peaking somewhere between the 1920s and the 1940s. In short, the scientific method is a relatively recent invention.
6. That a clear line of demarcation has separated science from pseudoscience. One essential characteristic of all those doctrines, labeled as “pseudosciences,” is that they very much resemble sciences, and so superficial characteristics fail to identify them. We also cannot define “pseudoscience” as incorrect doctrines, because many theories that we now consider wrong—either physics, arguments from design—were at one point unquestionably part of science, which implies that many of the things we now consider to be correct science will eventually be discarded as incorrect. Are advocates of those ideas today pseudoscientific?

Source: Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science.

There are 27 myths in all. That’s quite a few.