Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
was America's greatest geologist, unless Ewing was right and Bucher later earned
the title. The ubiquitous and long-lived Willis had great influence. Ewing himself
ruled Lamont, and it is no accident that almost all its scientists cast themselves in
his image.
What these authorities said counted. How differently events might have unfol-
dedifinsteadofdeclaringatheoryimpossible,theyhadsimplysaidthattheycould
not rule it out. Why did they cast their opposition in such draconian language? No
doubt they believed they were right, but how did they come to be so certain as to
stake their reputations? In his acceptance of the Penrose Medal of the Geological
Society of America in 1956, Arthur Holmes wisely quoted Goethe: “To be uncer-
tain is to be uncomfortable but to be certain is to be ridiculous.”
9
Debate and Consensus
Our review also sheds light on the role of debate and consensus among scientists.
Wemayhavefancied thatscientists engageingreat,face-to-face debates overtheir
controversies. Perhaps we imagine them as William Jennings Bryan and Clarence
Darrow at the famous Monkey Trial, as brilliantly depicted in its screen version by
Frederic March and Spencer Tracy, respectively. But scientists seldom debate each
other directly. Huxley did face off against “Soapy Sam” Wilberforce, but he never
directly confronted Kelvin. The two carried out their debate through speeches to
different audiences in different halls. What about continental drift? The answer is
the same: the few proponents of drift, including Wegener, never directly debated
the opponents.
But perhaps the debates take place in the pages of scientific journals. Let us
test thispossibility byaskinghowmanypeer-reviewed articles, excluding reviews,
opinions, comments, etc., with the phrase “continental drift” intheir title, scientists
published between, say, 1923 and 1955. That period spans the time from the first
English translation of Wegener's topic until just before articles on paleomagnetism
began to come out. The number will not include all the articles on continental drift
published during the period since some may not have had the phrase in their title,
but it will give us a sense of how actively scientists were pursuing drift. The Web
of Science turns up seventeen articles, about one every two years. Some articles
were pro drift, others con, but mostly the authors talked past one another. A “de-
bate” this was not.
The same is true of meteorite impact. The closest thing to a debate was the set
of opposing papers at the 1964 conference, with Bucher and Green on one side and
Baldwin and Dietz on the other.
