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Bad Astronomy has an article about an astronomer who had observational data to suggest he had discovered a planet around another star and published his findings in a peer-reviewed journal. In 1855.
We now know, with further, more accurate observations, that no such planet exists there, and the offsets are the product of uncertainty in the telescopic observations that were, to be fair, done by eye.
But still, despite that, I must tip my hat to Jacob. He did his homework, made the best observations and calculations he could, expressed skepticism in his writing, and came up with what he thought was the best explanation. Mind you, again to be fair, this took a great deal of cleverness to dream up. Perhaps he had been influenced by the recent discovery of Neptune.
If anything, he was guilty of overconfidence in his own measurements. Still, technology eventually caught up with his imagination and we did start to find alien worlds. The field of exoplanet research is now a thriving one, which has moved beyond the simple discovery stage to one where we are beginning to physically categorize and model them.
Not so incidentally, we have since found planets orbiting other stars using the method Jacob pioneered in 1855. He may have been the first person ever to publish this idea, and for that he deserves acknowledgment.
This short video gives some more information and context of the man and his (unfortunately erroneous) discovery. The original paper is also freely available.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 12 2016, @08:39PM
Last time I heard the "unknown unknowns" bit, it was being applied to early space travel. Known unknowns, like the maximum intensity of solar flares, can at least be characterized and predicted with some level of certainty. Unknown unknowns, like - well - anything you say will sound absurd until it actually happens, those are the most dangerous aspect of true exploration.
True scientific exploration is a journey into the realm of unknown unknowns. "Science" that stays in a comfortable place where most or all of the unknowns are actually known and partly characterized, that's bordering on engineering. Both are well worth pursuing.
All people, scientists and consumers of scientific output, need to keep in mind that results from true scientific exploration can be reversed just as easily as dogmatic opinion. The comfortable engineering-like science is building up stronger foundations of experience based knowledge, when it's not being overly biased by outside influences.
Just calling something "Science" doesn't make it a better foundation for decision making, you also need to know what kind of science you are dealing with - and that's not always an easy thing to determine.
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