This idea must die: scientific theories that are blocking progress

The theory of everything / Geoffrey West Unification / Marcelo Gleiser Simplicity / A.C. Grayling The universe / Seth Lloyd IQ / Scott Atran Brain plasticity / Leo M. Chalupa Changing the brain / Howard Gardner "The rocket scientist" / Victoria Wyatt Indivi-duality / Nigel Goldenfeld The bigger an animal's brain, the greater its intelligence / Nicholas Humphrey The big bang was the first moment of time / Lee Smolin The universe began in a state of extraordinarily low entropy / Alan Guth Entropy / Bruce Parker The uniformity and uniqueness of the universe / Andrei Linde Infinity / Max Tegmark The laws of physics are predetermined / Lawrence M. Krauss Theories of anything / Paul Steinhardt M-theory/string theory is the only game in town / Eric R. Weinstein String theory / Frank Tipler Our world has only three space dimensions / Gordon Kane The "naturalness" argument / Peter Woit The collapse of the wave function / Freeman Dyson Quantum jumps / David Deutsch Cause and effect / W. Daniel Hillis Race / Nina Jablonski Essentialism / Richard Dawkins Human nature/ Peter Richerson The Urvogel / Julia Clarke Numbering nature / Kurt Gray Hardwired=permanent / Michael Shermer The atheism prerequisite / Douglas Rushkoff Evolution is "true" / Roger Highfield There is no reality in the quantum world / Anton Zeilinger Spacetime / Steve Giddings The universe / Amanda Gefter The Higgs particle closes a chapter in particle physics / Haim Harari Aesthetic motivation / Sarah Demers Naturalness, hierarchy, and spacetime / Maria Spiropulu Scientists ought to know everthing scientifically knowable / Ed Regis Falsifiability / Sean Carroll Anti-anecdotalism / Nicholas G. Carr Science makes philosophy obsolete / Rebecca Newberger Goldstein "Science" / Ian Bogost Our narrow definition of "science" / Sam Harris The hard problem / Daniel C. Dennett The neural correlates of consciousness / Susan Blackmore Long-term memory is immutable / Todd C. Sacktor The self / Bruce Hood Cognitive agency / Thomas Metzinger Free will / Jerry Coyne Common sense / Robert Provine There can be no science of art / Jonathan Gottschall Science and technology / George Dyson Things are either true or false / Alan Alda Simple answers / Gavin Schmidt We'll never hit barriers to scientific understanding / Martin Rees Life evolves via a shared genetic toolkit / Seirian Sumner Fully random mutations / Kevin Kelly One genome per individual / Eric J. Topol Nature versus nurture / Timo Hannay The particularist use of "a" gene-environment interaction / Robert Sapolsky Natrual selection is the only engine of evolution / Athena Vouloumanos Behavior = genes + environment / Steven Pinker Innateness / Alison Gopnik Moral blank-slateism / Kiley Hamlin Associationism / Oliver Scott Curry Radical behaviorism / Simon Baron-Cohen "Instinct" and "innate" / Daniel L. Everett Altruism / Tor Nørretranders The altruism hierarchy / Jamil Zaki Humans are by nature social animals / Adam Waytz Evidence-based medicine / Gary Klein

Large randomized controlled trials / Dean Ornish Multiple regression as a means of discovering causality / Richard Nisbett Mouse models / Azra Raza The somatic mutation theory of cancer / Paul Davies The linear no-threshold (LNT) radiation dose hypotheses / Stewart Brand Universal grammar / Benjamin K. Bergen A science of language should deal only with "competence" / N.J. Enfield Languages condition worldviews / John McWhorter The standard approach to meaning / Dan Sperber The uncertainty principle / Kai Krause Beware of arrogance! Retire nothing! / Ian McEwan Big data / Gary Marcus The stratigraphic column / Christine Finn The habitable-zone concept / Dimitar D. Sasselov Robot companions / Sherry Turkle "Artificial intelliggence" / Roger Schank The mind is just the brain / Tania Lombrozo Mind versus matter / Frank Wilczek Intelligence as a property / Alexander Wissner-Gross The grand analogy / David Gelernter Grandmother cells / Terrence J. Sejnowski Brain modules / Patricia S. Churchland Bias is always bad / Tom Griffiths Cartesian hydraulicism / Robert Kurzban The computational metaphor / Rodney A. Brooks Left-brain/right-brain / Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Left-brain/right-brain / Stephen M. Kosslyn Moore's Law / Andrian Kreye The continuity of time / Ernst Pöppel The input-output model of perception and action / Andy Clark Knowing is half the battle / Laurie R. Santos and Tamar Gendler Informaiton overload / Jay Rosen The rational individual / Alex (Sandy) Pentland Homo economicus / Margaret Levi Don't discard wrong theories, just don't treat them as true / Richard H. Thaler Rational actor models : the competence corollary / Susan Fiske Malthusianism / Matt Ridley Economic growth / Cesar Hidalgo Unlimited and eternal growth / Hans Ulrich Obrist The tragedy of the commons / Luca De Biase Markets are bad, markets are good / Michael I. Norton Stationarity / Giulio Boccaletti Stationarity / Laurence C. Smith The carbon footprint / Daniel Goleman Unbridled scientific and technological optimism / Stuart Pimm Scientists should stick to science / Buddhini Samarasinghe Nature = objects / Scott Sampson Scientific morality / Edward Slingerland Science is self-correcting / Alex Holcombe Replication as a safety net / Adam Alter Scientific knowledge structured as "literature" / Brian Christian The way we produce and advance science / Cathryn Clancy Allocating funds via peer review / Aubrey De Grey Some questions are too hard for young scientists to tackle / Ross Anderson Only scientists can do science / Kate Mills The scientific method / Melanie Swan Big effects have big explanations / Fiery Cushman Science = big science / Samuel Arbesman Sadness is always bad, happiness is always good / June Gruber Opposites can't both be right / Eldar Shafir People are sheep / David Berreby

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder / David M. Buss

Romantic love and addiction / Helen Fisher

Emotion is peripheral / Brian Knutson

Science can maximize our happiness / Paul Bloom

Culture / Pascal Boyer

Culture / Laura Betzig

Learning and culture / John Tooby

"Our" intutitions / Stephen Stich

We're stone age thinkers / Alun Anderson

Inclusive fitness / Martin Nowak

Human evolutionary exceptionalism / Michael McCullough

Animal mindlessness / Kate Jeffery

Humaniqueness / Irene Pepperberg

Human being = homo sapiens / Steve Fuller

Anthropocentricity / Satyajit Das

Truer perceptions are fitter perceptions / Donald D. Hoffman

The intrinsic beauty and elegance of mathematics allows it to describe nature / Gregory Benford

Geometry / Carlo Rovelli

Calculus / Andrew Lih

Computer science / Neil Gershenfeld

Science advances by funerals / Samuel Barondes

Planck's cynical view of scientific change / Hugo Mercier

New ideas triumph by replacing old ones / Jared Diamond

Max Planck's faith / Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The illusion of certainty / Mary Catherine Bateson

The pursuit of parsimony / Jonathan Haidt

The clinician's law of parsimony / Gerald Smallberg

Essentialist views of the mind / Lisa Barrett

The distinction between antisociality and mental illness / Abigail Marsh

Repression / David G. Myers

Mental illness is nothing but brain illness / Joel Gold and Ian Gold

Psychogenic illness / Beatrice Golomb

Crime entails only the actions of criminals / Eduardo Salcedo-Albarán

Statistical significance / Charles Seife

Scientific inference via statistical rituals / Gerd Gigerenzer

The power of statistics / Emanuel Derman

Reproducibility / Victoria Stodden

The average / Nicholas A. Christakis

Standard deviation / Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Statistical independence / Bart Kosko

Certainty. Absolute truth. Exactitude / Richard Saul Wurman

The illusion of scientific progress / Paul Saffo.