Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
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The paranoid tone of pseudoscience occasionally surfaces in the works of orthodoxscientists; not, as one might expect, in the works of scientists who are trying to bringabout a scientific revolution, but more often than not in the works of scientists who areresisting change. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, for example, as the opinion of mostgeologists was swinging in favor of continental drift (as it was still called), a few conservative geologistsfought a rear-guard action against its acceptance. Interestingly enough, the more theevidence favored drift, so that one could be justified in referring to opposition todriftas pseudoscience, the more striking the parallels became between the writings of theanti-drifters and the tactics we see in other pseudoscientists. There was,for example, the familiar tactic of downgrading findings to the level of"hypothesis" or "speculation". And of course there were charges ofulterior motives and unscientific conduct. A few quotes will suffice to illustrate thegeneral tone of the attacks.
From the preceding, it must be clear that the drifter theoreticians are too much in the habit of elaborating on moving ocean floors, of navigating the continents, of producing physical anarchy with their clashing ocean cells, of postulating apparently fixed midocean ridges from which they direct crustal segments in mutually contradictory voyage directions (but refuse to voyage with them as they create contradictory motions elsewhere), and of disregarding the fundamental frame of the earth itself. Thus they have created an incoherent global picture, ignoring even such basic considerations as geography, geology, logic, and common sense. They imagine that they have found a panacea; they have opened, instead, a Pandora's box.
It is very difficult for me to believe that arguments presented without regard to simple rules of geometry, physics, and logic can long survive in serious science.
Finally, I am of the opinion that the proofs against continental drift--presented here and by others whose work I have cited--are overwhelming; that drifters should return to the world of reality and reconsider the feasibility of drift, or sea-floor spreading, or plate tectonics.
The advocates of continental drift have gone to unbelievable lengths to explain and rationalize a unified, unique, fossilized global system of oceanic and continental lithic structures.
Although the scientific knowledge of these writers is immeasurably greater, therhetoric is scarcely distinguishable in tone from that of any other pseudoscientists. I was going to graduate school at Columbia University when these papersappeared. The Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University was one of theresearch centers most heavily involved in the research that led to the confirmation ofcontinental drift. The reaction of the Lamont scientists to the anti-drift articles wasnot so much anger as amused, open-mouthed incredulity that any scientist would actually put his name on something like that.
One of the attacks on continental drift had to do with maps showing the reconstructedpositions of the continents in the geologic past. Of necessity, such maps have to bepresented on a flat page with inevitable distortion. One major critic of drift wrote:
Incredible as it may seem, not one earth scientist .... has utilized the mathematics of a sphere in discussion of earth tectonics. The treatments of (here he lists a large number of researchers) deal with flat-surface projections of spherical bodies ... Therefore, conclusions based on such treatments of plate tectonics are interesting exercises in plane geometry, but unrealistic in terms of the actual earth.
The clear impression is that researchers cut pieces out of flat maps, pieced themtogether and ignored the distortions. It does seem incredible. It's also totally false. Everyresearcher on continental drift used the mathematics of a sphere. Maps that show theformer positions of the continents show the continents that were at high latitudesdistorted, but the distortions are not the sorts of distortions one sees on a present-daymap. The maps are, and always were, prepared by first plotting the continents on a sphere(either a real sphere or the mathematical equivalent in a computer) and then portrayingthe sphere on a flat map projection.
The opposition to continental drift has enormous relevance to the common claim thatscience suppresses dissent. By about 1970, geologic opinion was solidly behind continentaldrift. Geology not only let the anti-drifters air their views, it actually bent the rulesin their favor. Taken as a whole, the anti-drift literature must surely rank among theworst rubbish ever printed in a major scientific journal. No scientist could possibly havepublished remarks as absurd as those we have just seen on any other topic in geology--it'sas if the journals had simply waived quality control entirely when it came to allowing theanti-drift camp to have its say. (Actually, that's exactly what happened - one of theleading drift opponents was editor of one of the journals involved.) And, although spaceis at a premium in scientific journals and papers must be condensed ruthlessly, yet someof the major anti-drift papers ran over fifty pages.
The only people since then that have found the anti-drift papers useful have beenscientific creationists, who cite them as "proof" that the continents don'tdrift. (If the continents formed a single supercontinent 200 million years ago, then theearth can't be only 10,000 years old, can it?)
The last hurrah of organized opposition to continental drift or plate tectonics came in1974 with the publication of Plate Tectonics - Assessments and Reassessments. Areview by the well-known geologist Warren Hamilton pretty well sums up its quality. Onemajor anti-drift paper is "filled with assertions that mostly are incorrect,misleading, or irrelevant", and contains "many denunciations of individual andcollective drifters as lacking in honesty and knowledge". He sums up the overallquality of the book this way: "The compilation here will, however, be appreciated byany professor who wants his graduate students to learn how weak are the arguments againstplate tectonics". Compared to what the anti-drifters said, this is pretty mildcriticism.
Continental drift had its opponents in the U.S.S.R., too. Soviet science was a gooddeal more authoritarian and hierarchical than science elsewhere, and at the top of theheap in Soviet geology was the tough and brilliant V.V. Beloussov, who for a long time wasa severe critic of continental drift. Yet Beloussov stands not only head and shoulders,but knees and ankles above the other critics we have read. Beloussov thoroughly understoodthe evidence that was being used in support of drift, and he realized that he not only hadto point out errors in the drift theory, but come up with some other interpretation thatworked better than continental drift. He made a serious effort to try, and if he did notsucceed, it was not for lack of effort or ingenuity, it was because he was backing thewrong side. Being wrong is no crime. Sooner or later every scientist makes a mistake.Being militantly and arrogantly wrong, like most pseudoscientists, is the crime.
Beloussov's accomplishments in science would be the envy of most scientists; if he isremembered for his opposition to continental drift it will be as a responsible andhonorable dissenter.
It is possible to find other examples of scientists using charges of persecution andvested interest that seem more in keeping with Velikovsky or creationism that withmainstream science. In addition to the attacks on continental drift, I have seen verysimilar attacks made against relativity, the quark theory of particle physics, the notionthat meteor craters exist on the earth, and the idea that some dinosaurs may have beenwarm blooded. There is an interesting pattern here. In every ease, the remarks are beingmade, not by a scientist challenging the Establishment with a revolutionary new idea, butby conservatives who are trying to block the acceptance of a new idea and who rationalizetheir minority stance by believing that all their colleagues have been carried away by anexcess of enthusiasm. This pattern, surprisingly, is fully in keeping with the nature ofpseudoscience. Pseudoscience is not revolutionary, as it so often claims to be, butreactionary.
So here goes with a list of some academic disciplines where the rhetoric suggests thatsome participants have crossed the line into pseudoscience. In every case it's theconservatives.
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Created 8 July 1998, Last Update 9 July 1998
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