I might mention the context of my question: On a different website I got into a debate with someone who thinks that the mind and rationality are mysterious, non-physical things, about which science can never say anything useful. I wanted to give the historical examples of such views being demolished, and found that I couldn’t call to mind more than two or three. My hope was that, for future iterations of that debate, I could refer back to a long list of cases; but it seems to be hard to come up with really strong examples of subjects being declared beyond the bounds of empiricism.
So, let me try to summarise the suggested answers:
DavidPlumpton: Spontaneous Human Combustion
This doesn’t quite seem to fit. It was for some time a mysterious phenomenon, but to the best of my knowledge it was never declared to be outside the boundaries of science; there is no mysterious answer.
Morendil: Germ theory
The proposed mysterious answer is humours and, by extension, other early theories about the internals of the body. But this does not seem quite right: Humours, for example, are at least an attempt at splitting the phenomenon into smaller parts, and then affecting one or two of the parts—hence the practice of bleeding, to “rebalance” the humours by letting out the one that was present in excess. It seems to me that there is a difference between “Humours, therefore disease, we’ll never know anything more” and “Humours, therefore disease—let’s change the humours”. Humours are in some sense a try at reductionism, even if not a good one because it wasn’t informed by empiricism.
Lapsed_Lurker: Luminiferous ether
I don’t see this as mysterious at all. It’s a reasonable way of dealing with Lorentz contraction: Just postulate a special frame of reference, which really is fixed. Nobody declared it unknowable or beyond the bounds of science; it was an ordinary scientific hypothesis, eventually shot down.
Hyena: Simultaneous Creation (of animal species)
Not mysterious at all. The early geologists and archeologists who went out to search for Noah’s Ark and whatnot expected to confirm the biblical account; and even now, creationists insist that the science is on their side—they just lie about what the science is! They don’t dispute that science is the way to get an answer to the question of the Earth’s age; or at least, this is very much a minority position.
Minibear Rex: Motions of stars and planets
Yes. Good one. I have nothing to add.
Manfred: Emergence/QM to explain the brain.
Well, kind of. “Emergence” is a mysterious answer, agreed; but I don’t know that we can say it has been fully explained away, as in the case of the planetary motions. There remain many people who believe that the brain, or rather the mind, is a mysterious thing beyond the ken of science—in fact I’d even say this is the mainstream view (not among scientists, of course).
Michael Howard: God
You would think so, but there’s an objection similar to what I raised for emergence, above. The explaining-away certainly exists, but it’s hardly the mainstream view.
I might mention the context of my question: On a different website I got into a debate with someone who thinks that the mind and rationality are mysterious, non-physical things, about which science can never say anything useful. I wanted to give the historical examples of such views being demolished, and found that I couldn’t call to mind more than two or three. My hope was that, for future iterations of that debate, I could refer back to a long list of cases; but it seems to be hard to come up with really strong examples of subjects being declared beyond the bounds of empiricism.
So, let me try to summarise the suggested answers:
This doesn’t quite seem to fit. It was for some time a mysterious phenomenon, but to the best of my knowledge it was never declared to be outside the boundaries of science; there is no mysterious answer.
The proposed mysterious answer is humours and, by extension, other early theories about the internals of the body. But this does not seem quite right: Humours, for example, are at least an attempt at splitting the phenomenon into smaller parts, and then affecting one or two of the parts—hence the practice of bleeding, to “rebalance” the humours by letting out the one that was present in excess. It seems to me that there is a difference between “Humours, therefore disease, we’ll never know anything more” and “Humours, therefore disease—let’s change the humours”. Humours are in some sense a try at reductionism, even if not a good one because it wasn’t informed by empiricism.
I don’t see this as mysterious at all. It’s a reasonable way of dealing with Lorentz contraction: Just postulate a special frame of reference, which really is fixed. Nobody declared it unknowable or beyond the bounds of science; it was an ordinary scientific hypothesis, eventually shot down.
Not mysterious at all. The early geologists and archeologists who went out to search for Noah’s Ark and whatnot expected to confirm the biblical account; and even now, creationists insist that the science is on their side—they just lie about what the science is! They don’t dispute that science is the way to get an answer to the question of the Earth’s age; or at least, this is very much a minority position.
Yes. Good one. I have nothing to add.
Well, kind of. “Emergence” is a mysterious answer, agreed; but I don’t know that we can say it has been fully explained away, as in the case of the planetary motions. There remain many people who believe that the brain, or rather the mind, is a mysterious thing beyond the ken of science—in fact I’d even say this is the mainstream view (not among scientists, of course).
You would think so, but there’s an objection similar to what I raised for emergence, above. The explaining-away certainly exists, but it’s hardly the mainstream view.