Comment Re:wow (Score 1) 810
I think the key difference is that the proposition that tiny creatures too small to see cause illness and that killing them with heat will stop them from doing so is something that is testable and verifiable. Also, while I don't know and, like you, can't be bothered finding out the details, I suspect Pasteur didn't go from "milk is white, how pretty!" to "I bet there's tiny bugs in there that make us sick but we could probably kill them with heat!" in one step. More likely, he already knew that for some unknown reason, heating milk before consuming it reduced the likelihood of certain illnesses. That knowledge, combined with other knowledge, resulted in a hypothesis that there were creatures in the milk that were so small they couldn't be seen with the naked eye causing the illness, and that heating the milk killed them. Again, that's a hypothesis that can be tested in various ways.
If Pasteur's claim was that tiny creatures in milk might cause illnesses, and that heating the milk may or may not kill them, and if it does, it may or may not prevent them making us ill, and in fact they still might manage to make us ill even if we don't drink the milk at all through mechanisms I've not yet figured out, then he'd still be right (about the tiny creatures, at least)... but what value is that to anyone? A statement that is true has no value in and of itself: if a neanderthal man conjectured a 100% accurate model of the universe, it wouldn't have done them any good since they lacked the means to prove it was correct. There'd be nothing to set that correct model apart from the incorrect 'models' of superstition that others were positing. A truth that cannot be verified is no better than an untruth that cannot be verified.
On a different note, I think your point was that we shouldn't mock people who come up with extraordinary claims because they might be right. But history is full of examples of people making extraordinary claims and being mocked for it, who are able to back up those claims with evidence, thus proving themselves to be right and silencing those that mocked them. Humankind has been mocking those who make extraordinary claims probably since we were capable of making such claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof in order to be taken seriously; it's a strategy that has worked very well for us for the entire history of humankind. Why should we change now?
If someone makes an extraordinary claim and not only doesn't provide evidence for that claim, but fails to provide a testable hypothesis that someone else could use to prove or disprove the claim, then they deserve to be mocked. Possibly the claim itself ought not to be, but the person making it does. Such claims contribute nothing of value to anyone, so we may as well get a laugh out of it.