The Most Unthinkable Scientific Absurdities of the 1800s

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Hey, fellas. If you like everyone, you've been wrong before. Nothing special about that. But every once in a while, all of humanity turns a blind eye to something that could be easily misproven. I'm no scientist, and I could spot these untruths from a mile away.

[00:00:14]So, here's four of the biggest scientific gaffes of the 19th century.

[00:00:18]First up, just over 100 years ago, people 100% believed beyond any doubt that not just life, but intelligent life was on Mars. But the most astonishing part is how they knew. It'd be one showed up.

[00:00:33]Yo, Martians here. We're not going to do any probing, just checking things out.

[00:00:39]Hey, command center? Yeah, this place rocks. Prepare for hostile takeover. Or, heaven forbid, they even just saw water on Mars's surface. But no, in 1877, Giovanni Schiaparelli reported seeing linear structures across Mars's surface through his telescope, positing that the only possible explanation was that they were irrigation canals created by intelligent life who were suffering a drought.

[00:01:02]>> [laughter] >> Phenomenal. So, last night, right? I busted out my old telescope with all the scratches on it, you know. And I kid you not, I saw perfectly straight lines on Mars's surface. Giovanni, my friend, that's freaking sick, bro.

[00:01:18]People believed this so strongly to the point where this rich French lady, offered 100,000 francs to be awarded for the first communication with life on another planet, excluding Mars, cuz the existence of life on Mars was sufficiently well known. You can't make this stuff up. No one else could even see these lines, and higher quality telescopes later proved that Giovanni's telescope just sucked. Imagine the hubris involved here. Just imagine it.

[00:01:43]That's like us with modern telescopes looking at an exoplanet 15 light-years away. Holy crap. Break out the champagne, Bob. We finally got conclusive proof of extraterrestrial sports. Boo-ya. Absolutely nothing else these circles could be except football stadiums. Next up, we got phrenology. We all know that if you work out like a boss, you're going to get yolked. So, this idea was that the brain is made of like two dozen different muscles that control stuff like secretiveness, philoprogenitiveness, and adhesiveness. Wait, what? And the muscles you work out most will grow enough to deform your skull when you're young, thereby allowing one to study your head shape and learn all about you.

[00:02:21]So, you know, lie a lot, and this part of your brain will be like But practice having great veneration, and suddenly you got a forehead like Abraham Lincoln. Oh, and this is the hauntingly formidable machine they strapped to your head to get your readings with some light prodding and electrocution. And this quackery wasn't fringe, it was widespread and influential. It helped dictate prison sentences.

[00:02:43]Oh, yeah. Hmm. He's definitely going to do it again, your honor. I'd slap an extra decade on that sentence.

[00:02:50]He's not wrong, your honor. People also treated phrenologists like their own personal Cupid. They even had a special school for kids. Worst thing that could happen to you was horse around and get a goose egg. You brought him to us just in time, Janet. I can see little Billy needs to work on benevolence. Don't worry, we'll beat his head smooth. What?

[00:03:07]What?

[00:03:08]You heard me. But really, whoever came up with this idea deserves a ribbon, cuz you couldn't construct a more perfect tool to construe things for your own agenda. Doc, what's wrong with me?

[00:03:19]Seems you have a bad case of the selfish-itis. Only known cure is to be more charitable.

[00:03:28]I don't know what I'd do without you.

[00:03:29]The theory finally fell apart in the 1840s cuz they couldn't agree on there being 27 or 40 brain muscles, nor could they actually see them when they finally decided to peer into a cadaver skull.

[00:03:40]Turns out stuff like women's brains being smaller was just a result of simple ratios once they discovered that women were overall smaller than men.

[00:03:47]Maternal impression. This is the idea that pregnant women who think bad thoughts will give her baby congenital defects. Hot dang. Picture the stress that puts on an expectant mother. You're already dealing with morning sickness, hormone imbalance, and the 7-lb life form itself growing inside your body.

[00:04:05]And then doctors tell you that if you're not Buddha level zen, your precious cargo will come out a disfigured beast.

[00:04:10]God, man. For 9 months, you'd be more anxious than a priest in a playground.

[00:04:14]And even worse, the pressure after birth when your kid just happens to be born with three arms and blind. You Genetic theory finally rendered this idea obsolete by the late 1800s, just in the nick of time to save Joseph Merrick's mom from feeling like the worst person ever. Spontaneous generation. I mentioned this in a recent video, but I need to mention it again cuz the audacity for this theory to last for 2,000 years when it could have so easily been proven wrong with the simplest experiments is mind-boggling.

[00:04:44]It's the belief that the most uncouth critters like flies and mice arise spontaneously from foul substances like mud and rotten meat, making it the most lazy theory for anything ever. This wasn't fully disproven until 1859, years after we had already discovered much harder things like electromagnetic induction, the first rabies vaccine, non-Euclidean geometry, and atomic theory. So, option one, put out some old meat and just watch a mouse walk to it from the other room. Option two, put some old meat in a sealed container for a few days, then open it to observe an expanse of pure micelessness. Milk transfusions. Now, it's kind of obvious that things of the same color are going to be the same thing, right? A crab and a tomato?

[00:05:26]I can't tell the difference. Blueberries and the sky? Who's to say which is which? So, it was only common sense for them to perform milk transfusions in the mid-1800s. White blood cells and cow milk are both white, so obviously injecting cow milk directly into a sick person's veins is going to amp up their immune system, no questions asked. My friends, if you've made it this far, then you truly are the cat's pajamas. To support even more animated absurdities, please hit those like, share, and subscribe buttons. Namaste.

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