The news media love to
announce scientific breakthroughs.
They tend to forget the mistakes.

The following science blunders don’t get a Nobel Prize. They get no bell at all. They don’t even win the IgNobel prize for researching weird things. They get the Gong Show.

When scientists have to revise “settled science,” how do they save face? They use these tried-and-true rescue devices:

• Make the new theory sound more exciting than the old, holding promise for better understanding.
• Use Tontological form (“we”), bringing the reader into the huddle of the mistaken.
• Never apologize.
• Preserve methodological naturalism (MN) at all costs.

One of the fundamental forces is stronger than we thought (New Scientist, 15 September 2026). In Tontological form with promises of understanding, reporter Karmela Padavic-Callaghan says, “One of the universe’s fundamental forces appears to be stronger than we thought, a finding that could lead to the discovery of new particles.” Who’s “we,” paleface?

JWST finds early galaxies were already seeding the universe with heavy elements (University of Arizona, 24 Sept 2026). Finding heavy elements in the earliest galaxies violates what textbooks have been saying for decades about “pristine” stars without heavy elements—the initial so-called “Population III” stars. It’s like admitting the heretics were right.

When the universe was still in its infancy – only 500 million years after the Big Bang or about 3% of its current age – some of the universe’s earliest stars and galaxies had already formed. Astronomers have long predicted that much of the gas surrounding these young galaxies must have remained rather pristine, composed of mostly hydrogen and helium, the primordial ingredients available in the newborn cosmos.

According to a study published by astronomers at the University of Arizona in Nature Astronomy, this picture likely is not correct. Instead, galaxies were already seeding the cosmos with heavy elements, such as oxygen and carbon, much earlier than astronomers expected.

Any chance of thinking that early stars were created with heavy elements at the beginning? Not on your life. MN must be preserved at all costs. The big bang theory is true! It must be!

Wolves did not save Yellowstone – why were we so desperate to believe they did? (The Conversation, 29 Sept 2026). All that research. All that money. All that righteous motivation. For what? Nothing. Scientists were desperate to show that reintroducing the apex predator, the wolf, back into Yellowstone, was not only necessary to preserve the ecosystem, it was just the right thing to do. This sad tale limned by Rogelio Luque-Lora of the University of Edinburgh reads like a tragic play. So do we get our tax money back? Do the ranchers get reimbursed for losing their herds? No; let’s just say what Yellowstone needs now is love, sweet love:

Wolves can be worth saving regardless of whether they save Yellowstone. Personally, I think ecologists should learn to say, simply, that they love wolves – and that these objects of their love need serve no purpose beyond themselves.

A coral reef thought dead for 60 years is teeming with life (Frontiers via ScienceDaily, 14 Sept 2026). This is not the only reef the experts got wrong. “The discovery suggests West Africa’s coastal waters may contain other overlooked reefs that have yet to be documented.”

Are Humans Naturally Violent? New Research Challenges Long-held Assumptions (University of Lincoln, 19 March 2026). What is meant by “natural”? And how can anyone prove such a generality about 8 billion people plus more billions from history? The answer is always “evolution” even when evolution contradicts what it said earlier.

mad scientist

New research from the University of Lincoln, UK, is challenging a common assumption about the evolutionary origins of human violence, suggesting that everyday aggression does not inevitably lead to lethal conflict.

The study, published in the international journal Evolution Letters, finds that mild aggression and lethal violence appear to have evolved along different pathways, offering new insight into one of the most enduring debates about human nature.

James was not invited to this debate. (Read James 4:1-10).

Neanderthals may have trekked through the Saudi Arabian desert 55,000 years ago, farther south than experts thought possible (Live Science, 18 Aug 2026). Add this to the huge collection of facts about Neanderthals that the experts got wrong.

Neanderthal Europe was as much a wooden age as a stone age (New Scientist, 7 October 2026). How did wooden artifacts survive so long (tens of thousands of years) is one question worth asking. Another is why did “experts” call this a Stone Age in the first place? Is that the only material that intelligent humans would have considered using for their various needs? A third question: why are anthropologists still calling them Neanderthals instead of human beings? Is that a kind of historical racism?

Maria Gema Chacón, also at the Catalan Institute, says the researchers have been surprised at how “complex Neanderthal woodworking could be, and how well they understood the properties of wood”, with the two spears being especially striking to her.

“Producing long, straight shafts and shaping them deliberately into pointed weapons required planning, skill and careful selection of the raw material,” says Chacón.

The Solar System could die one billion times earlier than thought (Nature, 6 October 2026). This is just pseudoscientists playing computer games on company time. How could anyone know this? Tell you what, Nature; come back after our solar system breaks up and show us if you were right.

That’s enough for now. You get the idea; scientists are only human, and they make mistakes. They are often wrong, but rarely humble. You’ll almost never hear them say “I’m sorry” for misleading the public for years or decades. Only rarely will someone get fired from Academia for admitting the old theory was wrong.

No, this is the Progress of Science myth: the Hegelian dialectic of contradiction playing itself out, as philosopher John Wise has explained. Contradiction feeds progress! The Ministry of Truth has its workers sending the old texts down the memory hole, and keeping the Latest Thing in the public mind. The only constant in this mess of doubtful things is MN itself.

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