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Wegener's hypothesis in general is of the footloose type, in that it takes considerable liberty
with ourglobe, and is less boundbyrestrictions ortied downbyawkward, ugly facts than most
of its rival theories. Its appeal seems to lie in the fact that it plays a game in which there are
few restrictive rules and no sharply drawn code of conduct. The best characterization of the
hypothesis which I have heard was a remark made at the 1922 meeting of the GEOlogical So-
ciety of America at Ann Arbor. It was this: “ If we are to believe Wegener's hypothesis we must
forget everything which has been learned in the last 70 years and start over again .”
(87, ITALICS ADDED)
Charles Schuchert's forty-page chapter was the longest of any except van der
Gracht's. 10 Schuchert too went after Wegener's methods, saying that
hegeneralizes tooeasilyfromothergeneralizations, and. . .payslittle ornoattention tohistor-
ical geology or to the time of the making of the structural and biologic phenomena discussed.
Facts are facts, and it is from facts that we make our generalizations, from the little to the great,
and it is wrong for a stranger to the facts he handles to generalize from them to other general-
izations. 11
But since science is cumulative, of course scientists generalize from the gener-
alizations of their predecessors, and to claim otherwise is disingenuous. The last
sentence may come closer to revealing Schuchert's real objection: Wegener was a
“stranger to the facts” of geology: he was an outsider.
To test whether Wegener's theory might actually work, Schuchert took an eight-
inch globe, placed plasteline (clear modeling clay) tracings over the continents
bordering the Atlantic, and slid them around to see how well they fit. They didn't.
“The resulting geography,” Schuchert wrote, “shows Central America about 1,200
miles away from Africa and leaves Siberia and Alaska separated by about 600
miles!” (110). Wegener had thus “taken extraordinary liberties with the earth's ri-
gid crust . . . making it pliable” (111). And then, “Are we to believe, with Wegener,
that shore lines and shelf seas have remained constant in shape, position, and con-
tour during 120 million years?” (114). Willis said the fit of the Atlantic continents
is too good for continental drift to be true. Schuchert said the fit is too poor for
continental drift to be true.
Schuchert went on: “It can be truthfully said that Wegener's hypothesis has its
greatest support in the well known geologic similarities on the two sides of the At-
lantic, as shown in strikes and times of mountain-making, in formational and faun-
al sequences, and in petrography.” But these “have all had more or less satisfactory
explanations on the basis of the present geography” (117).
Schuchert cited Pierre Termier, the director general of the Geological Survey
of France. Termier had said that Wegener's theory had “great charm and beauty,”
seeming to him “a beautiful dream, the dream of a great poet. One tries to embrace
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