From Heresy to Truth - Four Revolutions in the Earth Sciences - page 244

nounced continental drift impossible because the Earth is too strong to permit it.
Schuchert, Willis, and the other geologist-opponents of continental drift did not al-
ways claim that drift was physically impossible, though sometimes they did, but
rather that the geological evidence showed that it was impossible that drift had ac-
tually occurred.
Having declared continental drift impossible, in the 1950s its opponents had no
choice but to say that the supporting evidence from rock magnetism could not pos-
sibly be right. They had to claim that the paleomagnetists had forgotten that they
had banged on rocks with hammers. Or that the Earth's magnetic field had not al-
ways been dipolar.
Gilbert's logic dictated that it was impossible that meteorite impact had created
Coon Mountain. In 1933, Bucher wrote, “ All American cryptovolcanic structures
represent special phases of the ascent of basic magmas into the central plateau
region.” 4 In 1964, Jack Green declared meteorite impact a “trivial process in af-
fecting both the genesis and development of almost all major lunar surface struc-
tures.” 5 Charles Officer wrote that “one of the things that did not happen at the
K-T boundary was an impact by a gigantic meteorite.” 6
To state that a scientific claim is impossible is to say that one has proof of a neg-
ative. But in the earth sciences, where almost everything happened long before we
arrived and where most of the evidence is lost or inaccessible, proving a negative
is itself virtually impossible.
It is just as illogical to reject a scientific observation or theory because it “lacks
a mechanism,” as many said about continental drift. Had Newton and his contem-
poraries taken that position, they would have denied one of the most fundament-
al scientific findings: gravity. Newton did not let the lack of a mechanism stymie
him, writing: “Hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of the properties
of gravity from phaenomena, and I feign no hypotheses.” 7 The geologist Marshall
Kay stated the principle in the fewest words possible: “Whatever has happened,
can.” 8
To declare a theory impossible, unscientific as that may be, is one thing. To re-
sort to ridicule, sarcasm, and ad hominem attacks is worse and is usually a trans-
parent attempt to persuade scientists that the theory should be banished from their
minds, even from the curriculum. Remember Willis's “Fairytale” article and his
desire not to encumber young minds with false hypotheses. Or Officer's allega-
tion that the Alvarez theory was a “scam.” When authorities denounce and ridicule
an idea, their influence can be widespread and long lasting. Until the advent of
the data revolution that began in the 1950s, geologists tended to be overly influ-
enced by authority. Some worshipped Suess as close to an infallible God. Gilbert