This PhD genius sees the sea floor spreading at the Mid-Atlantic ridge, and concludes that it disproves continental drift.
I was fortunate to study geology under Robert Deitz, who bucked the 97% consensus and put plate tectonics denial to bed once and for all.
Continental drift WAS disproved. They had a consensus!
Any transitory consensus should be good for all time, right?
Considering that Hansen’s theories on radiation are based on the assumption that the Earth is flat, it would appear so.
i studied under Fred Vine, who not only confirmed sea floor spreading, but used it to demonstrate that the Earth’s magnetic field has undergone many reversals throughout geological history.
That was Real Science, as opposed to today’s post-modern politically-driven BS.
My father died because of a consensus.
Back in the 1970 peptic ulcer disease (PUD) were known by the consensus of medical practitioners to be caused by stress, too much stomach acid ,family history of a predisposition, and not caused by a bacterial infection.
Even though in 1951 J. Allende publishes a book describing the treatment of gastric ulcers with penicillin.
1955 Tarnopolskaya observes that penicillin seems to cure some peptic ulcers. Moutier and Cornet suggest treating gastritis with antibiotics. Kornberg and Davies observe that antibiotics reduce urease in cats.
1964 Lykoudis presents his antibiotic treatment for PUD at a meeting of the Medico-Surgical Society in Greece. He is largely shunned by the medical establishment.
1966 Lykoudis’ manuscript is rejected by the Journal of the American Medical Association
1968 Lykoudis is fined 4,000 drachmas for successfully treating PUD patients with his treatment, which includes antibiotics
1974 Morozov observes H. pylori; he does not connect this discovery to PUD. A well regarded study of PUD is published which does not mention bacteria.
Unfortunately in 1974 my father died of complications from an infected pectic ulcer.
The consensus had won.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_peptic_ulcer_disease_and_Helicobacter_pylori
I had the benefit of “coming of age” geologically speaking in undergraduate school in 1968 at UC Santa Barbara. The paradigm was shifting, and fortunately most of my faculty were open-minded to the notion of plate tectonics. John Crowell was working out the correlations of formations on opposite sides of the San Andreas Fault that indicated 100+ miles of young offset, and the paired magnetic stripes across the mid-ocean ridges provided compelling evidence of sea-floor spreading.
Wegner’s hypothesis was finally validated by evidence of a mechanism that could explain the relative motions of continental masses.
Damn! that was Science.
Paleoclimatology was also fact-based at that time. Sad to say that field drifted in political, rather than evidentiary, directions
Can’t wait til they find the crack in Hansen’s brief case!
Here is the true story behind that crack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4bnmNfuEa8
Your immediate point about the “academic genius” in 1957 is a good one, but that doesn’t make plate tectonics a robust, essentially correct theory. It is not:
The True Origin of Continental Drift
and
Challenge to Earth Scientists (Part 1 of 5) (Independent–and entirely unwitting–confirmation of my claims in this article can be found by following the “Independent Confirmation” link here.)
Plate tectonics due to internal magma currents is just another modern dogma, a fairy tale not supported by good physics. Instead, I have proved that the surface of the Earth was deliberately re-formed, to a great design that motivated ALL of the “ancient mysteries” of mankind (and can therefore be verified by them, along with every other line of investigation of the real Earth–as I and I alone have so far done). The current, “undirected evolution” paradigm of scientific investigation of the Earth is failing, and that great design I found and verified is the next. All of today’s troubles in science are due to general incompetence (due to miseducation), and avoidance behavior in the face of definitive evidence contrary to the consensus, in every field.
I know this is hard to take, for most who consider themselves well-educated in science today. Well, try to put yourselves in Hansen’s mind, or any of the deluded climate experts. Knowing how wrong they are, yet how in denial they (and the authorities of the world) are, ask yourselves how only climate science can be so bad, in the face of such widespread, fundamental incompetence. It is not. It is just the tip of the paradigm-failing iceberg, as it were. The lead dominoes in the string of speculative earth science theories are going down, but the entire string will go down, all the way back to where they first went wrong, with the denial of design of the “natural” world.
There is absolutely no doubt that people who consider themselves educated – today most professors and holders of PhDs – have always considered themselves superior and infallible.
This arrogant attitude has always hindered progress.
Climate science has become a pseudo religion though and this makes its brand of arrogance even more dangerous.
If you dare to question not only are you inferior intellectually but you are risking the “Save the Planet” goal – Hitler would agree except he would order your execution.
It has always been the case that consensus is a form of intellectual laziness and the most stupid are always the greatest advocates while the truly gifted are always decried as uneducated and incompetent.
Why this remains the case is simply astounding as it is ALWAYS those decried by the consensus that are responsible for advances in knowledge.
Expanding earth theory?
http://www.dinox.org/expandingearth.html
“When the newer ocean floor up to 65 million years ago is removed it leaves vast gaps”