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[[File:1902 vs 1969 5610.jpg|frame|1902: [[A Trip to the Moon|Shoot a manned projectile at the moon]] with a cannon. 1969: [[Real Life|Launch a manned rocket to the moon]].]]
{{quote|''"The advance of science does kill some romance. In 1950, it was still possible to think of a barely habitable Mars. There was still the possibility of canals, of liquid water, of a high civilization either alive or recently dead -- at least there was no definite scientific evidence to the contrary."''
|'''[[Isaac Asimov]]''', on A.E. van Vogt's '''''Enchanted Village'''''}}
[[Speculative Fiction]] often uses the [[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness|real-world scientific knowledge]] that was ''actually available'' when it was written. There is nothing wrong with that, and indeed powering and justifying your world with Hard Science is, to many people, preferable to [[Applied Phlebotinum]] and [[Techno Babble]]. Basing your fictional science off of real world science is an excellent way to create [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]].
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** And later he wrote a book called ''Worlds Fair 1996'', which featured Martians being put on exhibit at the titular fair, which was built on a massive rotating space station. Later in the same book, the protagonist then takes a nuclear powered rocket to Pluto (two weeks at a constant 1G thrust!) to get even more exotic specimens to display...
* ''[[A Martian Odyssey]]'', a short story penned in the 1930s, combines this with a sort of reverse [[The Great Politics Mess-Up|Politics Mess Up]]. In it, four men (an American, a Frenchman, a German, and a Russian), blast off to Mars through the miracle of atomic explosions and find it teeming with life and a miracle cancer cure.
* [[Robert Heinlein]] was a little overoptimistic about the prospects for life on Mars in ''[[Stranger in
** And many others. RAH actually ''admitted'' that he had an a-rational conviction that life would turn out to be ubiquitous in the universe, in an article in which he clung to the hope as late as 1965. His intellectual side suspected he was wrong by then, but he called it a 'religious conviction' that he would not let go of absent thorough exploration of Sol IV.
*** For a science that has ''no data'' to work with, exobiology swings back and forth from extreme optimism about extra-terrestrial life (Sagan, Drake, etc) to pessimism (currently,{{when}} there's a growing tendency to suspect that life may actually be ''very'' rare, possibly restricted to Earth). The pendulum will no doubt swing again.
* ''[[The Martian Chronicles]]'' by [[Ray Bradbury]].
* The valleys of Malacandra (Mars to us Earthlings) in ''[[The Space Trilogy|Out of the Silent Planet]]'' were meant to be the cause of the canals detected by Percival Lowell. Alas, even at the time that the book was published, evidence was mounting that what Lowell saw was just an optical illusion.
==== [[Live
* A few classic ''[[Doctor Who]]'' serials featured a race of reptilian humanoids called "Ice Warriors", who are in their first appearance explicitly stated to be natives of Mars. By the time they were revisited in the Third Doctor's run, the idea of Mars supporting a native population had become laughable, and subsequent appearances have retconned it either by saying that they originated on another planet and had colonies on Mars, or that they come from a completely different world outside our solar system the name of which is analgous to "Mars" in English.
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==== [[Literature]] ====
* In an [[H. G. Wells]] novel, ''[[The First Men in
* Arthur C. Clarke's novel ''A Fall of Moondust'' assumed that the alternate heating and cooling of the dust on the moon, due to the stark contrast between lunar daylight and lunar night, would eventually result in a miles-thick layer of dust so fine it acted like a liquid. The actual lutnar dust that the Apollo astronauts observed was only a few inches thick, and behaved more like ... well ... dust.
** Also, in Clarke's novel ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey|2001]]'', it's stated that samples of moon rock and dust apparently proved that the Moon was never part of Earth. In fact, real world Moon samples provided proof that the opposite was true.
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** Similar to the asteroid belt theory, Varley's ''Titan'' suggests that Saturn's rings are the remnants of a moon that shattered because giant living space stations kept using it as a nursery.
*** And in more science marching on, although it wasn't because of living space stations, a recent paper has modeled the origin of the rings as the breakup of a large moon which had its ice layers stripped off as it plunged into the planet.
** [[Robert Heinlein]]'s ''[[Stranger in
** The idea still pops up every now and then (one of the entries above mentions a 2008 novel, the early 90s [[Empire From the Ashes]] series establishes that there used to be another planet rather than an asteroid belt there, and so on). If nothing else, some of the examples can be handwaved as the event that caused the shift from planet to asteroids being far more destructive to the planet then merely blowing it apart in macro-scale chunks.
** The idea even pops up in ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'', of all places, where the Lunarians are said to have originally inhabited the now-obliterated planet that orbited between "the red planet" and the "Great Behemoth". The original English translation explicitly calls these planets "Mars" and "Jupiter".
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* [[Cordwainer Smith]]'s "[[Scanners Live in Vain]]" uses the fanciful premise that unscreened radiations present in space would leave space travelers in unbearable pain, such that only condemned criminals whose sensory nerves had been cut could function there. Turns out it doesn't take much more than a sheet of gold foil to block such potential threats.
* In Melisa Michael's Skyrider, the protagonist lives in the Belt and is constantly dodging rocks, requiring excellent flying to get through rocks and hiding from the patrol in a dense patch of rocks. Unfortunately the asteroid Belt is just not dense enough. Even in the densest part, if you were standing on one rock you wouldn't be able to see a single other rock.
* Today, it would be considered Poetic or [[Artistic Licence]] to describe the lights of distant stars as "fires". In Shakespeare's day? Lacking knowledge of nuclear fusion, they likely took "fires" literally:
{{quote|"Stars, hide your fires, Let not light see my black and deep desires."|Macbeth (in Act 1, Scene 4 of Shakespeare's Macbeth)}}
==== [[Live-Action TV]] ====
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* The [[Medical Drama]] ''[[Iryu Team Medical Dragon]]'' revolves around the Batista procedure, which reduces the size and volume of an enlarged heart. While the procedure may have been considered promising when the original manga was written (mid-1990s), by the time the [[Live Action Adaptation]] came around in 2004 the procedure's effectiveness had been largely discredited.
* ''[[After War Gundam X|Gundam X]]'' has a scene in which the protagonists meet an extremely intelligent dolphin, and Jamil says that dolphins have no concept of killing their own species. Well, this was a popularly-believed theory, but [http://www.fishingnj.org/artdolphagress.htm it turns out] that it couldn't be more wrong...
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' identifies Amuro as suffering form "shell shock" (i.e., what would now be known as PTSD or one of its related condition) and the treatment is to [[Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!|slap him]]. No wonder he's such a wreck in ''[[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam]]''.
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
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* Parodied as long ago as the 1973 [[Woody Allen]] movie ''[[Sleeper (film)|Sleeper]],'' a [[Rip Van Winkle]] comedy in which the protagonist wakes up in 200 years to discover, among other things, that wheat germ is bad for you and deep fat, steak, cream pies, and hot fudge were health food and cigarettes were the healthiest thing on the planet.
* In the 1950's scifi classic ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 film)|The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'', two doctors sit and discuss Klaatu's race's amazing health care - ''as they both smoke cigarettes inside the hospital''.
* In ''[[UHF (film)|UHF]]'' in the restaurant scene at the very beginning, you can see a sign saying that they cook all of their meat medium with a pink center unless otherwise specified. This was in 1989 and ''not a joke'', as it was before the 1993 [[wikipedia:Jack in the Box#E. coli outbreak|Jack-in-the-Box E coli disaster]] in which four children died and hundreds of others became sick in the Seattle area as well as California, Idaho and Nevada, after eating undercooked and contaminated meat from Jack in the Box. These days all meat in fast food restaurants is cooked well done, while in dine-in restaurants, the menus have mandatory warnings against eating undercooked meats. This way no one eats undercooked meat unless they ''ask'' for it (and many restaurants have a ''required minimum'' cooking temperature as well), thus keeping the restaurant from being sued.
=== [[Literature]] ===
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*# All the usual with [[Evolutionary Levels]].
*# While major radiation poisoning causes particular forms of cancer, there's no compelling reason to tie most cases to the ''normal'' radiation background.
*# As a result of the previous two: conditions for evolutionary ''adaptation'' include gamma rays just like everything else, which is why modern radiobiology doesn't use [[Oven Logic]] for the low end of the scale. E.g. rats grown (not even born) in a low radioactive background have health and development problems, thus ''some'' background seems desirable.<ref>It's better known for the plants, as their optimums are already orders of magnitude higher, so fallout levels dangerous to humans may still be stimulating to them. For algae, it was known from 1898, the general "radiation hormesis" hypothesis was put together by 1981 or so, and at least from 1983 it's about specific numbers [https://web.archive.org/web/20101127021058/http://www.biomedexperts.com/Abstract.bme/6844555/Possible_effect_of_natural_background_radiation_on_the_development_of_mammals for mammals].</ref> While Terran plants may face little to no threat from the slowly adapting local species for a long while, they would be unlikely to thrive on their own, since they are ''already'' several orders of magnitude below their radiation optimums on Earth, and now are given even less. Conversely, they could be treated with short-living isotopes, but this would make everything around mutate faster and adapt. As to the humans, Sanctuary's choice would boil down to "eat radioactive isotopes or slowly die out", between infections hitting them (since immune system is affected too, and while diseases would mutate less often, they don't need adaptation to overrun weakened hosts) and reduced capability of healthy birth at least preventing recovery.
** ''Stars!'', on the other hand, got it: whether gravity, temperature or radiation on a planet are outside the species' acceptable band to either side, you're in the same amount of trouble.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "The Slithering Shadows", gems fused with radium glow—except that the light can be turned on and off by rubbing them.
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=== Webcomics ===
* ''[[1/0]]'': in an early plotline, [http://www.undefined.net/1/0/?strip=285 Terra the earthworm is forced to the surface during a rainstorm to avoid drowning.] However, it is now known that earthworms do not drown in moist soil—in fact, [https://web.archive.org/web/20131030150146/http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-earthworms-surface-after-rain they can survive for several days fully submerged in water.]
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=== [[Literature]] ===
* In an [[H. G. Wells]] novel, ''[[The First Men in
** Jules G. Verne complained about the gravity blocking metal, calling Wells a hack for not taking science seriously enough. On the other hand, there is a book from as late as the 70's calling Wells' conception of time as a fourth dimension ridiculous, and, though Wells himself couldn't have known it at the time, relativity and quantum physics have since given credence to the idea of gravity waves and a graviton particle. We still haven't found any [[Hive Mind]]ed alien insects on the moon, or gravity-repelling metal alloy, though.
** His complaints about cavorite were particularly unjustified; Captain Nemo's Nautilus was built with antigravity rays in prow and stern to keep the huge lump of metal neutrally buoyant (and very detailed dimensions are given; he could have achieved the same goal by merely increasing the ship's length by ten feet across the middle).
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* Not SF, but an [[Older Than Radio]] example: Dr Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence and surgeon general of the Continental Army, was also a temperance activist. In 1784, he published ''An Inquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body, and Their Influence upon the Happiness of Society'', describing the negative physical and social effects of distilled liquor such as rum and whiskey ... but ''fermented'' drinks like beer were ''good'', because they didn't have the same type of alcohol as distilled drinks. (To be fair, Rush couldn't exactly do a chemical analysis to see that ethanol is ethanol. He was having to go off the way people acted after a few mugs.)
** Keep in mind also that clean, safe water is a relatively modern thing. Beer is boiled as part of the production process, killing off (then unknown) germs and bacteria in the water, and contains enough alcohol to keep it sterile long enough to be safely consumed.
** The same idea was expressed decades earlier by William Hogarth in two prints. The better-known one (and likely Hogarth's best-known work) is [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/GinLane.jpg "Gin Lane"], and shows the very real horrors brought to London by the trade in cheap gin. The lesser-known print, [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209181218/http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e7/BeerStreet.jpg "Beer Street"], shows the benefits of good English ale. This being Hogarth, of course, nothing is quite as clear-cut as it seems; some critics believe that aspects of the prints point to Hogarth blaming the despair and poverty seen in Gin Lane on the smug and self-satisfied inhabitants of Beer Street.
* Look no further than old chemistry texts for good examples of this. ''General Chemistry'' by the great Linus Pauling and a former standard first-year text has Element 104 on its periodic table as Khurchatovium; you might perhaps know it as Rutherfordium. (A number of transfermic elements suffered from dueling names for decades during the Cold War; for instance, Element 105, now called dubnium, was referred to as "hahnium" and "nielsbohrnium" by American and Soviet chemists respectively, and many periodic tables simply called it "unnilpentium" until a consensus was achieved.) For fundamental particles, it makes reference to there being eight each baryons and antibaryons (there are considerably more), eight mesons and antimesons (again, more), eight leptons and antileptons (there are twelve, six each), and lists the graviton, which is entirely theoretical. In many other respects, however, it's entirely accurate to a modern understanding.
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* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' did the same thing as ''[[Transformers]]'' below, correcting prior inaccuracies when making a new installment. Compare the kangaroo-style ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' Tyrannosaurus Dinozord (1993) with the horizontally-oriented ''[[Power Rangers Dino Thunder|Dino Thunder]]'' Tyrannozord (2004). This is because of a corresponding change in the [[Super Sentai]] source material.
* ''[[Walking with Dinosaurs]]'' has [[Science Marches On/Walking With Dinosaurs|its own page.]]
=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' has long used dinosaurs as powerful but non-supernatural animals [[Serendipity Writes the Plot|because miniatures were readily available and cheap]] and has stuck with them because [[Lost World]] areas had long become an accepted part of canon and there really isn't any other options for the mechanical niche. Neither toys nor art really kept pace with modern views on what dinosaurs looked like, and modern deceptions of iconic dinosaurs are often significantly less menacing looking. In response fourth edition made an attempt to rename the category to "behemoths" with fictional names (such as "Macetail Behemoth") to distance them from them from the dinosaurs now known to look nothing like these deceptions. Even though it's one of the few things 5th edition carried over, it never really stuck and everyone outside of official material still calls them dinosaurs.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
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** Interestingly enoughm, the film ''was'' originally going to have an accurate (for the time) Tyrannosaurus rex. Paleontologists hired as consultants for the film insisted that the T.rex be portrayed with only two fingers. [[Walt Disney]] stated that the T.rex should have three fingers in the film because [[Viewers are Morons|he believed that audiences wouldn't be able to recognize it otherwise.]]
*** Recently, it has been discovered that T.rex ''does'' have three fingers. The only problem is that said third finger is vestigal and would not be visible on the hand.
* ''[[Dinosaur Train]]'' does its best to stay on top of current discoveries, but sometimes it finds itself the victim of this. For starters, ''Eoraptor'' probably isn't a theropod after all, but ''[
=== [[Real Life]] ===
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[[Category:Time Marches On]]
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