btw, I think one would be hard pressed to get many students of psychology to say that Freud was ""discredited." I think they would say many of his theories were off base, they would also say that he is father of modern psycho-therapy and the "science" of dealing with the human psyche
That is, while we no longer employ his particular tactics for dealing with the psyche, he pointed us in the correct direction.
As a result, if we are to say that Freud has been discredited, we'd have to add Newton to the list (take a look at Book 2 of the Principia - it's an attempt to establish a formula for fluid dynamics, something we still don't have), Darwin (I imagine the theory of evolution is far more accurate now than it was in the Origin of Species) and every scientist from now to eternity who posits a theory that must face the test of empirical evidence.
A more appropriate example to support Andrew and Patrick's position is to point at Ptolemy, who described the motion of planets with alarming accuracy, good enough to be the standard celestial model for 1000 years. The only problem, of course, was that he had Earth as the center of the universe.
This is an example of building a model that provides results that are misleadingly positive. That is, the empirical evidence that is generated from the data is strong enough to convince the scientific community that the theory from which the evidence was generated is the most reasonable available.
Of course, since Copernicus, no one believes that the Earth is the center of the Universe, not even the Catholic church! (although that took a little while longer...)
It may very well be that the Church of Environmentalism is as wrong as pre-17th century science and all we need are revolutionary thinkers like Copernicus, Huygens and Newton to change our understanding.
However, the level of science that we have achieved, the accuracy of our models and the imminent danger the theory presents have all proven to be accurate, and pressing, enough that reasonable decisions can be made using them.
talli
