Left: Dan Hofstader’s The Earth Moves: Galileo and the Roman Inquisition (2009) on how in the years 1500 to 1700 the premise of a “moving earth” was considered “absurd” to all by the inquisitive thinkers, such as Nicolaus Copernicus (1540) or Galileo Galilei (1633). [11] Right: a depiction of a human as a DNA-centric CHNOPS+20 type of “abstract molecule” (Robert Sterner), a view deemed as “absurd” by many in the 21st century.

“The scorn which I had to fear on account of the newness and absurdity of my opinion [that the earth moves] almost drove me to abandon a work already undertaken.”

“The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith.”

“Some time ago my brother, professor William Thomson, pointed out to me a curious conclusion to which he had been led, by reasoning on principles similar to those developed by Carnot, with reference to the motive power of heat. It was, that water at the freezing point may be converted into ice by a process solely mechanical, and yet without the final expenditure of any mechanical work. This at first appeared to me to involve an impossibility, because water expands while freezing; and, therefore, it seemed to follow, that if a quantity of it were merely enclosed in a vessel with a moveable piston, and frozen, the motion of the piston, consequent on the expansion, being resisted by pressure, mechanical work would be given out without any corresponding expenditure; or, in other words, a perpetual source of mechanical work, commonly called a perpetual motion, would be possible. After farther consideration, however, the former conclusion appeared to be incontrovertible; but then, to avoid the absurdity of supposing that mechanical work could be got out of nothing, it occurred to me that it is necessary farther to conclude, that the freezing point becomes lower as the pressure to which the water is subjected is increased.”

“In Germany the conversion of the natural forces, for instance, heat into mechanical energy, etc., has given rise to a very absurd theory—that the world is becoming steadily colder … and that, in the end, a moment will come when all life will be impossible. I am simply waiting for the moment when the clerics seize upon this theory.”

“Sir,—In your report of a few words which I said in proposing a vote of thanks to Professor Henslow for his lecture ‘On Present Day Rationalism’ yesterday evening, in University College, I find the following:—‘Was there anything so absurd as to believe that a number of atoms by falling together of their own accord could make a crystal, a sprig of moss, a microbe, a living animal?’ I wish to delete ‘a crystal,’ though no doubt your report of what I said is correct.”

“Suppose that this hypothetical experiment could be realized, which seems not unlikely, and suppose we could discover a whole chain of phenomena [evolution timeline], leading by imperceptible gradations form the simplest chemical molecule to the most highly developed organism [person or human molecule]. Would we then say that my preparation of this volume [Anatomy of Science] is only a chemical reaction [extrapolate up], or, conversely that a crystal is thinking [extrapolate down] about the concepts of science? Nothing could be more absurd, and I once more express the hope that in attacking the infallibility of categories I have not seemed to intimate that they are the less to be respected because they are not absolute. The interaction between two bodies is treated by methods of mechanics; the interaction of a billion such bodies must be treated by the statistical methods of thermodynamics.”

“It is blatant absurdity to model laws governing human relationships using rules of thermodynamics, a set of rules that only apply at the molecular level. Human beings are NOT molecules.”

“Humans are a set of molecules in a very specific configuration. In the same way that a table is a very specific set of molecules and atoms as well. The idea that we are a molecule is completely absurd, given that even a single cell in our body is made up of millions of molecules! How can a cell be made up of millions of molecules, but a human then be ‘a molecule’? That's just silly.”