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In the early twentieth century, American earth scientists were united in their opposition to the new--and highly radical--notion of continental drift, even going so far as to label the theory "unscientific." Some fifty years later, however, continental drift was heralded as a major scientific breakthrough and today it is accepted as scientific fact. Why did American geologists reject so adamantly an idea that is now considered a cornerstone of the discipline? And why were their European colleagues receptive to it so much earlier? This book, based on extensive archival research on three continents, provides important new answers while giving the first detailed account of the American geological community in the first half of the century. Challenging previous historical work on this episode, Naomi Oreskes shows that continental drift was not rejected for the lack of a causal mechanism, but because it seemed to conflict with the basic standards of practice in American geology. This account provides a compelling look at how scientific ideas are made and unmade.
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The Rejection of CONTINENTAL DRIFT
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The Rejection of CONTINENTAL DRIFT Theory and Method in American Earth Science
NAOMI ORESKES
New York
Oxford
Oxford University Press 1999
Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1999 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Puhlication Data Oreskes, Naomi. The rejection of continental drift: theory and method in American earth science / Naomi Oreskes. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-511732-8; ISBN 0-19-511733-6 (pbk) 1. Continental drift. 2. Geology —United States — History— 20th century. I. Title. QE511.5.074 1999 551.1'36-dc21 98-4161
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
To Shlomo Flotzgebirge, my faithful companion, and to K. B., who sees connections that no one else notices and always keeps me on track.
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PREFACE
T
his book began in 1978 when I first studied geology at Imperial College in London. I had completed two years as a geology major at a leading U.S. university and counted myself lucky to have chosen a field of science heady in the wake of revolutionary upheaval: geologists around the globe were reinterpreting old data and longstanding problems in the new light of plate tectonics. It seemed a good time to be an aspiring young earth scientist. Imagine my surprise —and dismay—to discover in England that the radically new idea of plate tectonics had been proposed more than half a century before by a German geophysicist, Alfred Wegener, and widely promoted in the United Kingdom by the leading British geologist of his era, Arthur Holmes. The revolution that had been described by my professors in the United States as the radical revelation of a dramatically new vision of the earth was viewed by many of my professors in England as the pleasing confirmation of a long-suspected notion. Whereas my textbooks in the United States had proclaimed the expl