Forbidden Science

[Rolfe]

A thoroughbred racehorse can quite easily reach 40mph. I once tailed my Highland pony, not known for his turn of speed, at 30mph. Those who were allegedly making this silly claim had almost certainly gone faster than their assumed limit themselves, on horseback.

Rolfe.

 

[Mongrel]

I believe I have learnt a few things from this discussion.

It seems there is a tendancy for science to protect itself against change.

Part of this defensiveness manifests as a very real campaign to discredit authors who reveal dissenting information, rather than by simply pointing to the evidence.

I'd point out that proper scientists review their ideas when new evidence shows their pet projects to be wrong\misguided. If you wish to talk of authors I was re-reading some early Issac Asimov fiction, first printed 1952, of which I have 1970s reprints. He had inserted a foreword detailing that the book was based on the information he had at that time, it was wrong. He then detailed how it was wrong, quick summarys of how we knew it was wrong and hoped it wouldn't interfere with your enjoyment of the book.

 

[malbui]

I'd point out that proper scientists review their ideas when new evidence shows their pet projects to be wrong\misguided. If you wish to talk of authors I was re-reading some early Issac Asimov fiction, first printed 1952, of which I have 1970s reprints. He had inserted a foreword detailing that the book was based on the information he had at that time, it was wrong. He then detailed how it was wrong, quick summarys of how we knew it was wrong and hoped it wouldn't interfere with your enjoyment of the book.

I'm also aware of an example of Asimov doing that in his science books. His "Asimov's New Guide to Science" went to four editions (with name changes) over about 20 years, I think, and he cheerfully identified things that had altered since previous editions. A good example is continental drift, which was rejected out of hand at the beginning but which was firmly entrenched by the end. As Mongrel says, that's how proper scientists behave.

 

[Mojo]

As Mongrel says, that's how proper scientists behave.

It's also one of the things about science that is most fun. There's always more stuff to find out; why bother with making stuff up?

 

[kookbreaker]

Your attempt to pretend that the scientific establishment didn't actively oppose the Wright Brothers' claim of heavier than air flight is "historicly impaired." As Richard Milton notes at http:/www.alternativescience.com/skeptics.htm:

I can now rank Richard Milton among the historicly impaired as well.

"Experts were so convinced, on purely scientific grounds, that heavier than air flight was impossible that they rejected the Wright brothers' claims without troubling to examine the evidence.

Nonsense. Complete and utter dreck. The Wright brothers were not the only ones working on flight at the time. They were merely the first to succeed.

As for the 'evidence', Milton should recall that the Wright brothers deliberately withheld the majority of the evidence from prying eyes. Particularly from those eyes of experts.

It was not until President Theodore Roosevelt ordered public trials at Fort Myers in 1908 that the Wrights were able to prove conclusively their claim and the Army and scientific press were compelled to accept that their flying machine was a reality.

Milton should perhaps seek to be confined in a special school for this level of impairment. He fails to acknolwedge those aviation pioneers whose planes took off years before those of the Wright brothers, proving flight possible, but lacking the control that the Wright brothers' machine posessed. He also ignores the clumsy, but working flying machines before the Wright brothers demonstrated their machine.

In one of those delightful quirks of fate that somehow haunt the history of science, only weeks before the Wrights first flew at Kittyhawk, North Carolina, the professor of mathematics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, Simon Newcomb, had published an article in The Independent which showed scientifically that powered human flight was 'utterly impossible.' Powered flight, Newcomb believed, would require the discovery of some new unsuspected force in nature.

A deception, at best. The article in question can be found here:

http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v3p167y1977-78.pdf

Newcomb's complaints, are with the level of technology, which he sorely underestimated. Never once decalring flight to be impossible.

Only a year earlier, Rear-Admiral George Melville, chief engineer of the US Navy, wrote in the North American Review that attempting to fly was 'absurd'.

Melville's skepticism is always given with this one quote, and never in context. Before the Wright's, several folks had demonstrated flight principles, but the question at hand was if the Wright brother's machine could fly, and fly controlled.

It was armed with such eminent authorities as these that Scientific American and the New York Herald scoffed at the Wrights as a pair of hoaxers.

"In January 1905, more than a year after the Wrights had first flown, Scientific American carried an article ridiculing the 'alleged' flights that the Wrights claimed to have made. Without a trace of irony, the magazine gave as its main reason for not believing the Wrights the fact that the American press had failed to write anything about them.

This is deceptive to say the least. SciAm certainly acknowledged the accomplishments of the Wright Brothers. From their Jan. 1904 issue:

It should be noted that S.A. was hardly universal in its skepticism of the Wright brothers. From their Jan 2, 1904 issue:

As an offset to the failure of the aerodrome is to be recorded
the successful flight of a motor-driven aeroplane built by the
brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright--an event of supreme
importance in the history of aeronautics, insomuch as it is the
first case of a aeroplane, carrying its own engine and an
operator, making a trip over several miles of distance. The
machine, which has a surface of 510 square feet and is driven by
a 16 horsepower motor, is stated to have carried Mr. Wright for
a distance of 3 miles against a 20-mile-an-hour wind at a speed
of about 8 miles an hour--an actual speed of nearly 30 miles an
hour through the air. This feat marks the commencement of an
epoch in the history of the aeroplane; for now that an aeroplane
has been built that can fly, the work of gathering experimental
data will proceed with a rapidity which was impossible when
aeroplane flight, at least on a full-sized scale, had never gone
beyond the theoretical stage.

By 1905, the coyness of the Wright brother's had set off a wave of suspicion that they were perpetuating a hoax.

"If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face -- even if he has to scale a fifteen-storey skyscraper to do so -- would not have ascertained all about them and published them broadcast long ago?"

In other words, the same attitude that most members of Randi's organization have today.

Dreck and nonsense from Milton. If he learned history he might learn from it. Of course, Rodney swallowed every word as fact. Milton vomits, Rodney eats.

 

[Ripley Twenty-Nine]

(The last post.)

A great post, kookbreaker. Very informative and thorough!

 

[Chris Haynes]

A great post, kookbreaker. Very informative and thorough!

I agree with that sentiment... I kind of knew the stuff, but only did a cursery search. Kookbreaker did an excellent job (and his avatar fits the subject matter)!

 

[kookbreaker]

Thankew,

Its a pet peeve of mine when people flat out state "Science said people couldn't fly". It is the woowoo's latest version of "People thought the world was flat". A more than casual look at history at that time demonstrated that this idea is laughable! In fact, it was newspaper accounts of flying machines (uncontrolled ones) that inspired the Wright brothers to build their machine!

 

[Rodney]

http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v3p167y1977-78.pdf

Newcomb's complaints, are with the level of technology, which he sorely underestimated. Never once decalring flight to be impossible.

The "utterly impossible" quote may have been picked up by Milton from the Internet, which earns him a demerit. However, if you bother to read Newcomb's 1903 article, he clearly believed that heavier than air flight was impossible in the foreseeable future. For example:

"We cannot have muscles or nerves for our flying machine. We have to replace them by such crude and clumsy adjuncts as steam engines and electric batteries. It may certainly seem singular if man is never to discover any combination of substances which, under the influence of some such agency as an electric current, shall expand and contract like a muscle. But, if he is ever to do so, the time is still in the future. We do not see the dawn of the age in which such a result will be brought forth."

"But I do think that success must await progress of a different kind from that of invention."

"But we have already seen that there is no mechanical combination, and no way of applying force, which will give to the aeroplanes the flexibility and rapidity of movement belonging to the wings of a bird. That this difficulty is insurmountable would seem to be a very fair deduction."

"If, therefore, we are ever to have aerial navigation with our present knowledge of natural capabilities, it is to the airship floating in the air, rather than the flying machine resting on the air, to which we are to look."

Melville's skepticism is always given with this one quote, and never in context..

So what was the context?

SciAm certainly acknowledged the accomplishments of the Wright Brothers.

I think a fair inference is that, while some of the SciAm staffers may have had an open mind toward the Wright Brothers' achievement, the editors of SciAm did not. Or are you challenging the accuracy of Milton's quote from the January 1905 SciAm?

"If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face -- even if he has to scale a fifteen-storey skyscraper to do so -- would not have ascertained all about them and published them broadcast long ago?"

By 1905, the coyness of the Wright brother's had set off a wave of suspicion that they were perpetuating a hoax.

What is your evidence that they were coy? According to http://www.wrightstories.com/history.html --

"First Flight News: When Loren Wright presented the telegram from Orville and Wilbur describing their first flight on Feb. 17, 1903, the editor of the Dayton paper didn’t publish the news because he didn’t he didn’t see anything significant enough to publish."

Dreck and nonsense from Milton. If he learned history he might learn from it. Of course, Rodney swallowed every word as fact. Milton vomits, Rodney eats.

Profound, and a great way to elevate the discussion.

 

[bruto]

The "utterly impossible" quote may have been picked up by Milton from the Internet, which earns him a demerit. However, if you bother to read Newcomb's 1903 article, he clearly believed that heavier than air flight was impossible in the foreseeable future. For example:

"We cannot have muscles or nerves for our flying machine. We have to replace them by such crude and clumsy adjuncts as steam engines and electric batteries. It may certainly seem singular if man is never to discover any combination of substances which, under the influence of some such agency as an electric current, shall expand and contract like a muscle. But, if he is ever to do so, the time is still in the future. We do not see the dawn of the age in which such a result will be brought forth."

"But I do think that success must await progress of a different kind from that of invention."

"But we have already seen that there is no mechanical combination, and no way of applying force, which will give to the aeroplanes the flexibility and rapidity of movement belonging to the wings of a bird. That this difficulty is insurmountable would seem to be a very fair deduction."

"If, therefore, we are ever to have aerial navigation with our present knowledge of natural capabilities, it is to the airship floating in the air, rather than the flying machine resting on the air, to which we are to look."



So what was the context?



I think a fair inference is that, while some of the SciAm staffers may have had an open mind toward the Wright Brothers' achievement, the editors of SciAm did not. Or are you challenging the accuracy of Milton's quote from the January 1905 SciAm?

"If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face -- even if he has to scale a fifteen-storey skyscraper to do so -- would not have ascertained all about them and published them broadcast long ago?"



What is your evidence that they were coy? According to http://www.wrightstories.com/history.html --

"First Flight News: When Loren Wright presented the telegram from Orville and Wilbur describing their first flight on Feb. 17, 1903, the editor of the Dayton paper didn’t publish the news because he didn’t he didn’t see anything significant enough to publish."



Profound, and a great way to elevate the discussion.

As for evidence that they were coy, just about any reputable source dealing with the history of the Wright brothers will give you the same general story. They were attempting to obtain patents, and their worries about patent infringement and contest were very real, and borne out later by patent disputes. They did not publicize the details of their flights. Skepticism about the level of technology that they had achieved was reasonable at the time, considering that they did not publicize the means by which they were able to achieve both flight and control, and these inventions were indeed both innovative and important.

One of the things that needs to be pointed out also, in case it has not become clear yet, is that "science" did not abandon the Wright brothers. The Wright brothers were scientists themselves. They were not just a couple of backwoods bicycle mechanics tinkering in the barn. The were serious, studious, scientific researchers doing both science and technology in a systematic way, which succeeded. When they reached a level of success that was both repeatable and patentable, they made it public and it was universally accepted.

I really don't know anything about the Newcomb quote, and have not researched it because I believe it is irrelevant. As I remarked earlier, the gap between the Wrights' first flight and the complete and general acceptance of their invention was less than five years, during two of which they did not make any flights at all. Even if Newcomb did make those statements, and even if they did reflect the general attitude of experts at the time (which I rather doubt), it is really simply irrelevant, because flight did occur and it was accepted when it was demonstrated.

However, I seriously doubt if a quotation like the one above reflects the general attitude of scientists at that time, because the preposterous notion that heavier-than-air flight required the imitation of birds had long been abandoned by all serious experimenters. The Wrights, Otto Lilienthal and others had been successfully gliding for a very long time, and the principles of lift from stationary wings were well demonstrated. The technological barriers involved control and the production of sufficient propulsive power to maintain lift and control. If, as the quotation above suggests, Newcomb was seriously considering that powered flight required an ornithopter design, he was woefully behind the times even in 1903.

Even if the Newcomb quote is genuine, and even if it did represent the attitude of the majority of the scientifc community at the time, the history to me shows a fine example of how well science, including skepticism, works. People can reasonably doubt that an unlikely thing has been done until they see it done. When they see it done, they change their minds. In this worst case, even assuming athat the Newcomb quote is significant, the transition from a total misconception of what would be required to achieve powered, heavier-than-air flight to a complete acceptance of it, even to the point where the U.S. government contracted to purchase airplanes, was less than five years. Hooray for science, and hooray for healthy skepticism.

 

[tracer]

if you bother to read Newcomb's 1903 article, he clearly believed that heavier than air flight was impossible in the foreseeable future. For example:

[ ... ]

"But we have already seen that there is no mechanical combination, and no way of applying force, which will give to the aeroplanes the flexibility and rapidity of movement belonging to the wings of a bird. That this difficulty is insurmountable would seem to be a very fair deduction."

And there, Newcomb was absolutely right. To this day, we still have not built any manned vehicle that flies like a bird by flapping its wings.

Newcomb wasn't denouncing airplanes in that paragraph, he was denouncing ornithopters.

 

[UrsulaV]

It's also worth noting that there's a huge difference between predictions about the future state of technology and claims about past.

Technology does weird stuff. Predicting the future is tricky, particularly when we reduce it to bite-sized quotes out of context.

There is, however, a huge difference between backing the wrong horse on the zepplin-vs.-manned flight thing at the dawn of aviation, and claiming that Venus was a freakin' comet. You can't test the future, except by waiting around, and once you're there, if your hypothesis is wrong, you don't get to go back and change all those nice quotes you left lying around for people to seize on, and sometimes, it cannot be denied, people are wrong.

Venus being a comet shot out of Jupiter and grazing the Earth, however, is an eminently testable question. One can examine the structure of comets, the structure of Venus, the respective orbits of the planets, the earth's crust--you have vast and myriad sources of data that you can test very quickly, and more shows up all the time, what with probes and whatnot. You don't have to just sit and wait for the future to happen, you can test it against the data right now.

And if you're proved wrong, as Velikovsky was a hundred times over, you do the honorable thing and change your hypothesis and say "Whoops, guess the data proves that theory wrong! Dang, it was a nice one, too. Oh, well, que sera, sera," and print retractions. You do not cling to your theory and cry like a little girl and claim that the scientific establishment is crushing you. That's just kinda sad.

There is honest error, which can be forgiven. If you make a mistake about predicting flight--well, admit it, and learn from it, and get on with life.

And then there's just clingin' to your stupid and completely disproved idea because you like the idea that Venus was a comet and the Bible rully rully happened.

 

[bruto]

Rather than edit my post, I will simply add to the above that if one wishes for one corroboration of the Wrights' coyness, as well as the way the scientific community actually reacted, Rodney, you can go to the Wrightstories website you yourself cited, where it is noted that it was not until 1906 that the Wrights publicly declared that they had successfully flown significant distances, and that on publication of that letter, Scientific American sought input from witnesses and published a correction within a month of that letter's publication!

The article also goes on to corroborate my statement, gleaned from other sources, that after 1905 they did not fly again for over two years, largely in order to protect their invention until they had obtained patents and a contract, as their flights had begun to attract spectators. Although they did not keep their initial flights secret, they did not publicize them when they were made, and rightly feared that too many witnesses would compromise their secrets.

In other words, as I have said before, skepticism notwithstanding, the whole Wright story essentially shows both the scientific dedication of the Wrights, and the scientifc skepticism of others, at their best.

edit: forgot to mention also that the Wrightstories site also got the date of the first flight wrong, and of course Rodney's citation was thus also wrong, since he did not notice the error. The first flight was not February 17, 1903, but December 17, 1903.

 

[bruto]

Not entirely relevant to the discussion, but perhaps a good illustration of how good scientists and engineers work, I found a little snippet on how the Wrights developed their first propeller. Hoping at first to extrapolate data from marine propellers, they found that no such data actually existed, and that they must develop from theory alone. This proved quite difficult, and Orville's account of the process includes the following gem:

We engaged in innumerable discussions, and often after an hour or so of heated argument- , we would discover that we were as far from agreement as when we started, but that both had changed to the other's original position in the discussion.

 

[Dragon]

... snip

And if you're proved wrong, as Velikovsky was a hundred times over, you do the honorable thing and change your hypothesis and say "Whoops, guess the data proves that theory wrong! Dang, it was a nice one, too. Oh, well, que sera, sera," and print retractions. You do not cling to your theory and cry like a little girl and claim that the scientific establishment is crushing you. That's just kinda sad.
...

Quite, or as Bob Park put it

Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment; you must also be right.

 

[kookbreaker]

The "utterly impossible" quote may have been picked up by Milton from the Internet, which earns him a demerit. However, if you bother to read Newcomb's 1903 article, he clearly believed that heavier than air flight was impossible in the foreseeable future. For example:

And if your read quotes by Orville Wright you would hear the factual conclusion that he did not beleive man would fly for a thousand years. I guess that means the Wright Brothers never flew.

"We cannot have muscles or nerves for our flying machine. We have to replace them by such crude and clumsy adjuncts as steam engines and electric batteries. It may certainly seem singular if man is never to discover any combination of substances which, under the influence of some such agency as an electric current, shall expand and contract like a muscle. But, if he is ever to do so, the time is still in the future. We do not see the dawn of the age in which such a result will be brought forth."

Note the use of the terminology here. Newcomb is showing some ignorance of combustion engine technology...which was rapidly improving. His reference to only steam engines and batteries betrays this.

"But I do think that success must await progress of a different kind from that of invention."

Golly!

"But we have already seen that there is no mechanical combination, and no way of applying force, which will give to the aeroplanes the flexibility and rapidity of movement belonging to the wings of a bird. That this difficulty is insurmountable would seem to be a very fair deduction."

As other pointed out already, he was right in this regard. Ornithoptors do not work for human flight.

I would also point out, that even if Newcombe was declaring flight to be impossible, he was hardly in the majority. To date, several prominent scientists had acheived flight, but without control.

"If, therefore, we are ever to have aerial navigation with our present knowledge of natural capabilities, it is to the airship floating in the air, rather than the flying machine resting on the air, to which we are to look."

Note that he never said airplanes were impossible.

So what was the context?

You tell me.

I think a fair inference is that, while some of the SciAm staffers may have had an open mind toward the Wright Brothers' achievement, the editors of SciAm did not. Or are you challenging the accuracy of Milton's quote from the January 1905 SciAm?

"If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face -- even if he has to scale a fifteen-storey skyscraper to do so -- would not have ascertained all about them and published them broadcast long ago?"

That has little to do with anything, really. Again, the doubt in question is aimed at the Wright brothers, not in the possibility of flight in general

What is your evidence that they were coy? According to http://www.wrightstories.com/history.html --

"First Flight News: When Loren Wright presented the telegram from Orville and Wilbur describing their first flight on Feb. 17, 1903, the editor of the Dayton paper didn’t publish the news because he didn’t he didn’t see anything significant enough to publish."

Tell me how many public demonstrations of flight they made between Kitty Hawk and the Military Demonstration? That's what I mean about being coy. They weren't shy from publicity, they just weren't going to show their machine to everyone, only to have it copied.

Profound, and a great way to elevate the discussion.

I call them like I see them. Milton is an idiot, and you are twice the fool for following him. Both of you show rampant ignorance of history and you dare accuse others of the same thing.

 

[Rodney]

Even if the Newcomb quote is genuine, and even if it did represent the attitude of the majority of the scientifc community at the time, the history to me shows a fine example of how well science, including skepticism, works. People can reasonably doubt that an unlikely thing has been done until they see it done. When they see it done, they change their minds.

It's difficult to cling to a belief that heavier than air flight is impossible when an airplane is flying overhead, but some truths are more subtle; for example, meteorites. Now, in that case, meteorite debunkers in the French Academy of Sciences (FAS) had the misfortune of having a meteorite shower occur nearby in 1803, but what if that hadn't happened? How long would it have been before the FAS accepted the reality of meteorites?

More recently, Edgar Cayce demonstrated conclusively the reality of psychic phenomena in the first half of the 20th Century, but the scientific community largely ignored him. Today, Randi, Robert Carroll, Martin Gardner, and many participants in these forums, either because they have not undertaken a sufficient examination of Cayce or because accepting the reality of what he did is too disturbing to their worldview, make him out to be a charlatan. There is also the intriguing ongoing work of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) team -- http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/ -- which debunkers claim must be flawed, even if they cannot demonstrate how.

 

[UrsulaV]

More recently, Edgar Cayce demonstrated conclusively the reality of psychic phenomena in the first half of the 20th Century,

Ya know, I've noticed something here, Rodney...you haven't said a word in support of Velikosky. You haven't presented a single fact about his theories that I've see, nor a single defense of his reasoning.

Instead you seem to think that because science is against him, he must be right--apparently because some people scoffed at lighter than air travel, and the scientific world doesn't think Cayce was anything but a crackpot. You appear to be arguing, not based on facts, but based on an emotional appeal that because science dismisses Cayce (whom you believe) and the enemy of my enemy is my friend, that Velikosky must be right, because ooo, science dismisses him, too!

You got any actual facts about worlds in collision, or are you just proceeding on the notion that if scientists think it's idiotic, it must be true?

Hmm...I wonder if the Wright Brothers made use of any ramps...

 

[kookbreaker]

More recently, Edgar Cayce demonstrated conclusively the reality of psychic phenomena in the first half of the 20th Century, but the scientific community largely ignored him. Today, Randi, Robert Carroll, Martin Gardner, and many participants in these forums, either because they have not undertaken a sufficient examination of Cayce or because accepting the reality of what he did is too disturbing to their worldview, make him out to be a charlatan. There is also the intriguing ongoing work of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) team -- http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/ -- which debunkers claim must be flawed, even if they cannot demonstrate how.

And yet, PEAR admits that they haven't really found anything.

http://www.skepticreport.com/psychics/shapesintheclouds.htm

One can safely assume your asessment of Cayce is equally over-optimistic.

 

[bruto]

It's difficult to cling to a belief that heavier than air flight is impossible when an airplane is flying overhead, but some truths are more subtle; for example, meteorites. Now, in that case, meteorite debunkers in the French Academy of Sciences (FAS) had the misfortune of having a meteorite shower occur nearby in 1803, but what if that hadn't happened? How long would it have been before the FAS accepted the reality of meteorites?

More recently, Edgar Cayce demonstrated conclusively the reality of psychic phenomena in the first half of the 20th Century, but the scientific community largely ignored him. Today, Randi, Robert Carroll, Martin Gardner, and many participants in these forums, either because they have not undertaken a sufficient examination of Cayce or because accepting the reality of what he did is too disturbing to their worldview, make him out to be a charlatan. There is also the intriguing ongoing work of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) team -- http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/ -- which debunkers claim must be flawed, even if they cannot demonstrate how.

It never fails to surprise me how people can use examples of real things being proven real as evidence that we ought to accept nonsense as real without proof.

So the French Academy doubted meteorites until they saw some. Then they stopped doubting, because they then knew the meteorites were real. If it hadn't happened in one place at one time it would have happened at another. It should be pointed out that since Isaac Newton had mistakenly believed that no such small objects would be adrift in space, there was some resistance to the idea, and occasional meteorites were explained away by other theories, so it took some time before the evidence overcame the theory. But it did, of course. As occurs so often, scientists learned from experience, changed their theories as required by evidence, and went ahead. In other words, here is another example of science working correctly used as an argument for abandoning science.

You can add me to the list of people who consider Cayce a charlatan. Needless to say if he had indeed "demonstrated conclusively" anything other than the gullibility of numerous people, then his prophecies and cures and other hokum would be accepted. That's what it means to demonstrate something conclusively.