There seems to be a scale of "dearness" of ideas. Some ideas are far more precious, valuable, even sacred than others.

I could happily give up the theory of atomic weights...because I'm not very good at chemistry. But I'd really dig in my heels if someone tried to get me to give up the theory of electricity...because I've done enough work with electrical circuits to have a personal emotional identification with it.

In the nineteenth century, explorers were comfortable enough giving up the idea that magnetic north was equal to true north. But you'd have a devil of a time persuading anyone to give up the concept of truth north!

On a personal note: I was VERY relucant to accept the reports that there might be frozen water on the moon. It just "felt" wrong. I'm still dubious, and I admit freely that my emotions are a part of it.

I have a friend who was fiercely reluctant (back in the 1970's and 80's) to accept that the surface temperature of Venus was hot enough to melt lead. He admitted, with complete honesty, that he still held hope that Venus harbored life. He also admitted that it was an emotional prejudice, not a scientific conclusion.

When, in 1982 or so, Alan Guth first published the notion of the "expansionary phase" of the Big Bang, I fell in love with it. Instantly. Emotionally. Irrationally. And to this day, I must take extra care to try to divorce my emotions from my education. I *want* it to be true.

The key is for professionals to maintain their distance from their ideas, lest they, like Rene Blondlot, become mired in the quicksand of their desires.

Silas