Thanks to Mochus of Sidon who was born before Trojan times.
The Greek concept of atomism lost favour with the fall of Ancient Greece. While it happened to turn out to be surprisingly astute, there is no connection with the modern, Western discovery of the atom, and the ancient Greek idea of the 'atom' (especially since the latter considered it to be indivisible, hence the name).
However, until John Dalton in the 19th century the mainstream refused to believe in atoms. And even after that Ernst Mach and other mainstream physicists refused to believe in atoms.
So? I never said the mainstream of 200 years ago was the same as the mainstream today. The power of science comes from its ability to adapt and change to fit new data. No doubt the mainstream will change its views on, say, lateral gene transfer, over the next thousand years. That doesn't address the point: the mainstream is not moronic for believing the most probable explanation as true, pending future evidence.
The mainstream believed the Earth was flat at one point.
Yeah, thousands of years ago before a) there was definitive proof to the contrary, and b) a high-speed way for new ideas to spread. The 'mainstream' was isolated pockets of civilisation. And, you'll notice, the
modern mainstream believe that the Earth isn't flat, and only
religious people for
religious reasons believe the Earth is flat.
The mainstream can't count that high.
Well that makes absolutely no sense. Care to elaborate?
So they must be infallible...
I'm sorry, please cite the part of my post where I made this claim. And please note I explicitly stated that arguments
ad populum (such as yours) are fallacious.