For most of the 20th century, the scientific consensus ridiculed anyone who believed that the continents moved.
By 1980, the scientific consensus gave up on blocking progress in geology, and turned their attention to blocking progress in climate science.
Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
It actually made me wonder about evolution (or rather where we came from). Like global warming, liberals are very fierce when it comes to protecting evolution theory. (and sun scare, saturated fat scare and so on).
Lou, you might be interested in Jerry Coyne’s book on evolution. It is an easy read and pulls together a lot of data and has decent discussions regarding what is evolution and the fossil record. http://www.amazon.ca/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143116649
It’s a flat theory, a boring one. But it’s not all wrong, as if God runs everything always in real time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bee6PWUgPo8
You see, *most* of evolution occurred when bacteria were kings and queens, and trillions of them relied *not* just upon single sink-or-swim survival of the fittest of entire one-off organisms, but those little buggers also swapped DNA. So those little climate-ruined bastards created the LEGO blocks of macro-machinery that only then in boring sense formed higher primates that may or may not have tapped into Godhead later on.
“So those little climate-ruined bastards created the LEGO blocks of macro-machinery that only then in boring sense formed higher primates that may or may not have tapped into Godhead later on.”
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And, they did this without SUV's–truly amazing….
A little elucidation on plate tectonics. Wegener’s hypothesis was met with skepticism more than ridicule (although that skepticism slopped over into some early 20th century scientific snark). It must be noted that at the time he presented his paper in 1911, some noted scientists and, I’m sure, many others less known, thought he had a pretty compelling idea.
The problem was, as Lane Core, above, correctly points out in quoting Planck, the current generation of very good earth scientists simply could not find a mechanism to allow translational movements of continental masses instead of the obvious vertical movements. This was in spite of extensive field work had found evidence of thrust faulting and even collisions in the record amongst other evidence. The fall-back, of course, was “land bridges and the like and rather elaborate hypotheses to explain ocean basins, orogeny, strike-slip faults (the San Andreas by 1911 had been recognized as such). In my early years in geologic science (I use the larger term instead of just “geology” as I have done geophysics and engineering as well as exploration geology) there were terms still used as not only land bridges, but eugeosynclines and, so help me, my favorite, the “meso-cordilleran geanticline,” (the Rockies and the Colorado uplift).
The history of the creation of the “new global tectonics,” as plate theory was originally called, is actually rather fascinating, with an interesting mix of characters involved.
The bottom line is my repetition (at an absurd length) of the hard fact that scientific “consensus” is evoked because of ignorance, and is sustained for reasons of self-interest.
There is no consensus that the earth rotates in a manner that causes the sun to appear to “rise” in the direction we have agreed to call “east.” It fits the facts.
There is no consensus now that plate tectonics explains an awful lot (not all) of what we see in large-scale geology. Observations confirm and, please note, refine the theory.
Likewise, there would be no need to call on consensus to justify the claims of the climate catastrophe paradigm. Even if you cannot figure out how the “continents move”, you must compare theory to observation. If you cannot do that, you are not doing science, you are indulging in consensus fiction of the worst sort.
If facts suborn the model, go with the facts. Facts build mountains.