Top 10 Times Experts Were Proven WRONG

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today were counting down our picks for the wrongest experts in the game.

#10: Communication Satellites? Silly Sci-Fi. Then Came Sputnik and Telstar

Tunis Augustus Macdonough Craven wasnt some cranky luddite; he was a Navy communications officer turned Chief Engineer and then commissioner for the FCC. The man lived his life with a front-row seat to the future of technology. He even saw Sputnik spark the space age. Yet, in 1961, Craven confidently dismissed the idea of communication satellites. He said, "There is practically no chance that communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television or radio service." At the time, it sounded reasonable. Rockets were still experimental, and space was mostly the stuff of pulp novels. Just a few years later, Telstar bounced the first live TV signal across the Atlantic. It turns out satellites were the future of communication after all.

#9: High-Speed Rail Is Impossible Now Its Global

In 1823, science writer Dionysius Lardner had a grave warning for the world: trains going faster than 30 miles per hour would asphyxiate passengers. King William I of Prussia reportedly scoffed, No one will pay good money to get from Berlin to Potsdam in one hour when he can ride his horse there in one day for free. For some of historys most educated minds, relatively high-speed rail sounded like reckless science fiction. But trains would soon shrink continents and fuel the Industrial Revolution. Transportation would never be the same again. Fast forward, and railroads reshaped the planet. Modern high-speed trains run faster than Lardner ever imagined. Today, the only choking involved with trains tends to involve bureaucratic red tape.

#8: Television Wont Last Said Radio Hosts & Film Producers

When TV arrived, some folks thought it was just a noisy lamp. In the 1940s, major radio industry experts dismissed it as a passing novelty. In 1946, 20th Century Fox head Darryl Zanuck is said to have predicted, People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. Spoiler: they didnt. Over the next few decades, television spread faster than a cold. They were everywhere from living rooms to bars and even department store windows. TV didnt kill radio or the movies, but it sure stole the spotlight. Television reshaped politics, culture, and entertainment in ways no one on the airwaves ever saw coming. The medium they wrote off as a fad is now something we binge, stream, and carry in our pockets.

#7: The Smartphone? A Niche Toy Until It Changed Everything

In 2007, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer laughed off Apples new iPhone. Theres no chance, he scoffed, that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. His reasons? No keyboard, no business appeal, and a whopping $500 price tag. Some experts thought it was a flashy luxury, a toy for Apple fans with money to burn. Every argument aged like milk. Within a few years, smartphones didn't just go mainstream. Alien observers could honestly say the smartphone conquered humanity. From American classrooms to remote villages in sub-Saharan Africa, these miniature computers are everywhere. For many, theyve replaced cameras, maps, alarm clocks, landlines - even computers and TV. It's a pocket-sized device more powerful than the computer that put a man on the moon.

#6: Nuclear Power Is Pure Fantasy Until It Wasnt

In the late 1920s, Nobel laureate RobertMillikan dismissed atomic energy as a childish bugaboo. He told the Chemists Club in NewYork that expecting usable energy from the atom was a completely unscientificUtopian dream. Fast forward to 1933, and ErnestRutherford - who had just split the nucleus - laughed at the notion. He insisted that anyone expecting power from atoms is talking moonshine. Even AlbertEinstein weighed in, stating in 1934 that there is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. A decade later, America dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Age of the Atom forced all the nay-sayers to recant. Instead, they had to shift their criticisms and focus on the potential of a nuclear armageddon.

#5: Surgeons Laughed at Antiseptic Methods Then Infections Killed Thousands

In the mid-1800s, Joseph Lister suggested something wild: maybe surgeons should stop waving pus-covered tools around like party favors. After reading about germ theory, Lister began sterilizing instruments and spraying carbolic acid in operating rooms. The results were immediate and, in retrospect, unsurprising; infection rates plummeted. But many of his peers werent impressed. Some mocked his ideas. Others flat-out refused to believe invisible germs could kill a patient. One critic sneered that Listers methods turned surgery into a rainstorm. Yet hospitals that adopted antiseptics saw mortality drop dramatically. Today, we scrub, sterilize, glove up, and mask in every operating room on Earth. The guy they laughed at saved more lives than most of them could ever imagine.

#4: Who Would Want a Computer in Their Home? Misjudging the PC Boom

In 1977, Ken Olsen ran one of the worlds top tech companies. Then he face-planted. There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home, he declared. Back in the 40s, IBMs Thomas Watson reportedly said five computers would be enough for the whole planet. Spoiler: he was off by a few billion. They were two experts, decades apart, who couldn't have been more wrong if they'd tried. By the 90s, computers were ubiquitous, and the internet was bringing the world together. Thats when Newsweek columnist Clifford Stoll dunked on it. The 90s, he'd said, were the pinnacle of hardware and software. It would never get any more portable or user friendly. Today, he laughs at his own howler of a bad prediction.

#3: Lord Kelvin Said Flight Was Impossible Weeks Before the Wright Brothers Flew

Lord Kelvin wasnt just a brilliant scientist and scholar. He was THE scientist of his time. President of the British Royal Society. A mathematical genius. The man literally helped define the absolute temperature scale. So when he declared in 1895 that heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible, people listened. The problem, of course, was that he'd be proven wrong before a decade had passed. Just eight years later, the Wright brothers lifted off at Kitty Hawk. Sadly for Lord Kelvin's legacy, that wasnt his only whiff. In 1896, he also dismissed X-rays as a hoax - right before they revolutionized medicine. As it turns out, even the hottest of hot shots can get scorched by technological revolutions.

#2: The Stock Market Has Hit a Permanent High Right Before the 1929 Crash

Economist Irving Fisher was one of the most respected minds in America. He was a brilliant Yale professor; when he spoke, policymakers listened intently. His name and economic theories still show up in textbooks. So when he said that stock prices had reached... a permanently high plateau, people believed him. Sadly for Fisher, this prediction came in the fall of 1929, mere days before the utter collapse of the U.S. stock market. Black Tuesday wiped out billions in wealth. By the end of the crash, some stocks had lost over 90% of their value. Fisher himself lost both his own fortune and his credibility. He will go down in history as delivering one of the most spectacularly absurd predictions of all time.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

Online Shopping Will Flop

Time Magazine Predicted Online Shopping Back in 1966; They Said It Wouldnt Catch On.

Power Poses Are Real

Even One of the Authors of the Original Power Posing Study Thinks She Was Probably Wrong.

There Will Never Be a Bigger Plane than the 247

A Boeing Engineer Said in 1933 That the Ten-Seater 247 Would Be the Largest Plane Ever.

The Machine Gun Will End All War

Hiram Maxim Believed His Deadly Invention Would Make War Impossible, Not More Terrible.

We Cant Learn Anything Further About Astronomy

In 1888, Astronomer Simon Newcomb Said Wed Learned All There Was to Know of the Stars.

#1: Smoking Doesn't Cause Cancer - Doctors Once Said Smoking Was Safe, or Even Healthy

For decades, the smartest people in the room said cigarettes were fine. In the 1930s and 40s, tobacco companies ran ads claiming doctors actually recommended their brands. Some even bragged that their cigarettes were physician-tested and less irritating to the throat. Medical journals ran cigarette ads. Health professionals endorsed them. One campaign had doctors choosing Camels by a wide margin. Meanwhile, lung cancer rates were quietly exploding. By the time the truth caught up, it was too late for millions. Today, its hard to imagine anyone not knowing the risks. But, back then, your doctor would have lit one up right there in your hospital room.

Who do you think was the wrongest genius in history? Let us know in the comments below!