The very idea of mini-black holes? They've never been observed, so no one really knows how they really behave. Yes, there are the astrophysical constraints. But those also depend on a lot of untested theory. Ever been on the inside of a white dwarf? And is the universe really as old as we think it is? As time progresses, the age of the universe tends to decrease.

You may have heard ridiculous claims like "100 years ago scientists said the Earth was flat!" and all kinds of other nonsense from people that are trying very hard to point out that science can be wrong. But you never heard such nonsense from me--that's for sure. I gave the link to Lord Kelvin's original paper. Read it for yourself. He estimated the age of the Earth at 100,000,000 years, with 500,000,000 as a maximum upper bound. I also gave the link to the history of the "Shrimp" bomb that turned out to be a "Prawn".

I remember when former Scientific American writer John Horgan came out with his book, The End of Science. I used to carry it around the philosophy department. All the big discoveries are over, I used to say. Then we found out that the universe is accelerating.

I've come to the conclusion that science still has surprises in store for us. Is it uncritical to imagine that not all such surprises will necessarily be pleasant surprises?