Originally Posted by Professor Peabody

Throughout history many an intelligent man has made failed predictions in their fields of expertise. We need not jump to conclusions until the pro global warming scientists can produce convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate and disprove the alternate theories with hard science. Until such a time, no legislative action should be taken.

Failed Predictions:

Computer Technology:

* "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.

* "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
-- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

* "But what... is it good for?"
-- IBM executive Robert Lloyd, speaking in 1968 about the microprocessor, the heart of today’s computers.

* "We will never make a 32 bit operating system."
--- Bill Gates

Aircraft

* "Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible."
- Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later. Newcomb was not impressed.

* "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
-- Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.

* "It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere."
-- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1895.

* "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
-- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904.

* "There will never be a bigger plane built."
-- A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.

Automobiles

* "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad.”
-- The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903.

* "That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced."
-- Scientific American, Jan. 2 edition, 1909.

* "The ordinary "horseless carriage" is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle."
-- Literary Digest, 1899.

Miscellaneous technology

* "By 1985, machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do."
-- Herbert A. Simon, of Carnegie Mellon University - considered to be a founder of the field of artificial intelligence - speaking in 1965.

* "The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most."
-- IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

* "I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea."
-- HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901.

* "X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
-- Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883.

* "Very interesting Whittle, my boy, but it will never work."
-- Cambridge Aeronautics Professor, when shown Frank Whittle's plan for the jet engine.

* "The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous."
-- Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.

* "Caterpillar landships are idiotic and useless. Those officers and men are wasting their time and are not pulling their proper weight in the war."
-- Fourth Lord of the British Admiralty, 1915.

* "How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton's steamboat, 1800s.

* "The phonograph has no commercial value at all."
-- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1880s.

* "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said 'you can't do this'."
-- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3M "Post-It" Notepads.

* "Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever."
-- Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).

* "Home Taping Is Killing Music"
-- A 1980s campaign by the BPI, claiming that people recording music off the radio onto cassette would destroy the music industry.

Television

* "Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan."
-- Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.

* "Television won't last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."
-- Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.

* "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming."
-- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926.

Lightbulb

* "... good enough for our transatlantic friends ... but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men."
-- British Parliamentary Committee, referring to Edison’s light bulb, 1878.

* "Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to its true progress."
-- Sir William Siemens, on Edison's light bulb, 1880.

* "Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure."
-- Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison's light bulb, 1880.


There is no room to post them all, but you should have the idea that we need not jump to conclusions regarding Global Warming, let the science play out...why the bums rush by Al Gore?