Blabbermouth Experts Who Declared "IT WILL NEVER WORK! " LOL!

 We Internet Folk are the resulting offspring of "Stuff That Happened" and "Stuff That Never Should Have Happened", so therefore, we are very much all related to each other as closely as blood siblings, no matter where in the World we come from...

 As in most families, some of us really feel this kinship much more closely than others, and that is a Natural and Human feature...

 But lately, as displayed by some of the responses in the debate I got myself into over at Newsweek , Some folks don't seem to get this relationship at all, and they want to change the Internet into an "Experts Only " information zone of some type... Creepy.

 Anyway, I have decided that I needed an inspirational boost, which means that I had to drag my "Amateur" butt all around the search engines, and try and see why "Experts " and their informed opinions about stuff, should be held in such high regard...

 Here's a few "Gems..." from "Experts " throughout history who declared "It Will Never Work!"

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it... Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient.

- Dr. Alfred Velpeau (1839), French surgeon

 

Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean.

- Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859), Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London.

 

There is a young madman proposing to light the streets of London—with what do you suppose—with smoke!

- Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) [On a proposal to light cities with gaslight.]

 

The Kölonische Zeitung [Köln, Germany, 28 March 1819] listed six grave reasons against street lighting, including these:

1. Theological: It is an intervention in God's order, which makes nights dark...
2. Medical: It will be easier for people to be in the streets at night, afflicting them with colds...
3. Philosophical-moral: Morality deteriorates through street lighting. Artificial lighting drives out fear of the dark, which keeps the weak from sinning...

    

[W]hen the Paris Exhibition closes electric light will close with it and no more be heard of.

- Erasmus Wilson (1878) Professor at Oxford University

 

They will never try to steal the phonograph because it has no `commercial value.'

- Thomas Edison (1847-1931). (He later revised that opinion.)

 

This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.

- Western Union internal memo, 1878

 

What use could this company make of an electrical toy?

- Western Union president William Orton, responding to an offer from Alexander Graham Bell to sell his telephone company to Western Union for $100,000.

 

Well informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.

- Editorial in the Boston Post (1865)

 

Radio has no future.

- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist, ca. 1897.

Credits to Don Simanek for this collection:

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/home.htm 

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 Given the accuracies of the above predictions and opinions, My Loving Apsense Family... I think that you should keep going on your chosen path, and learning all that you can from your own experiences.

 And when it happens that you are attracted to an "Expert " assessment of your own Life and it's progress, please remember that "Grain Of Salt" thing... Or, these days, make that a BARREL of Salt...

 Love and Laughter 4-Ever! :)