What I mean is,
the reason people used to think that humans would never fly is that it seemed absurd to them - but there was no underlying logical reason to think this, and furthermore, flight is obviously possible, because birds and bees do it all the time.

The difference here is that there are strict physical laws, which are dreived from mathematics and logic, that forbid things like peretual-motion machines or faster-than-light travel. It's in the same realm as the four-sided triangle. So unless we learn some way to manipulate space-time - not *logically* impossible, but a sci-fi possiblility in the extreme - we will never travel faster than light.

And if you think there's nothing unique about 20th century science, I suggest you read some more science history!
( Mr. Tea 'ulmmm'/'mmneurgh', Thu 4 May 2006, 2:50, archived)

People believed birds could fly because they had a God-given ability that defied natural law.
It was taught in schools and sworn upon as "logical" until as late as 1900.

The 20th century is percieved as unique, because we all lived through it. Let's wait a few hundred years and see what is believed then.
( Digeridude Lord Wellington's Beef Trapeze, Thu 4 May 2006, 2:52, archived)

I bet you a gazillion pounds
the conservation of energy will not have been disproven, any more than "2+2=4" will have been disproven.

And no sersious scientist believed in 'God-given abilities' in 1900! Otherwise why would people have tried to make aeroplanes that worked just a few years later?

I'll tell you what's unique about the 20th century - the possibility that science may tell us not only how the universe works, but why it exists in the first place. That idea had never existed before.
( Mr. Tea 'ulmmm'/'mmneurgh', Thu 4 May 2006, 2:58, archived)

People had tried to explain the origin of the universe since the beginning of religion.
And non-traditional mathematics have proven that 2+2 can also equal -4, 2, 1, 0, or 5.

As with every vocation, there are multiple methods of interpretation. As we advance into greater forms of physics, laws of the lower ones break down. At some point in science, whether 1000 or 100,000 years from now, we will find that EVERY law will break down under certain circumstances.
( Digeridude Lord Wellington's Beef Trapeze, Thu 4 May 2006, 3:02, archived)