"The Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market.” (Image by IFCAR.)

Listverse has compiled a number of embarrassing science, tech and business quotations that have proven very, very incorrect. “Experts” being wrong is always fun because it makes the rest of us feel less stupid. (Thanks Reddit.) Here are a few from the full list:

• “With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market.” — Business Week, August 2, 1968.

• “That virus is a pussycat.” — Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, on HIV, 1988.

• “Within the next few decades, autos will have folding wings that can be spread when on a straight stretch of road so that the machine can take to the air.” — Eddie Rickenbacker, Popular Science, July 1924.

• ‘The abdomen, the chest and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.’ – Sir John Eric Ericson, Surgeon to Queen Victoria, 1873.

• “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” — Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.