Slashdot Mirror
When Continental Drift Was Considered Pseudoscience
Lasrick writes "I Love this article in Smithsonian by Richard Conniff. One of my geology professors was in grad school when the theories for plate tectonics, seafloor spreading, etc., were introduced; he remembered how most of his professors denounced them as ridiculous. The article chronicles the introduction of continental drift theory, starting a century ago with Alfred Wegener. From the article: 'It was a century ago this spring that a little-known German meteorologist named Alfred Wegener proposed that the continents had once been massed together in a single supercontinent and then gradually drifted apart. He was, of course, right. Continental drift and the more recent science of plate tectonics are now the bedrock of modern geology, helping to answer vital questions like where to find precious oil and mineral deposits, and how to keep San Francisco upright. But in Wegener’s day, geological thinking stood firmly on a solid earth where continents and oceans were permanent features.'"
Your analogy is bad. Man-caused global warming has been around as a theory for a very long time. It's something that climatologists are split on whether or not its happening. Most on both sides say it's way too early to make any predictions about, since wide variations happen over short time frames, which are long time frames by todays standards.
The reason that global warming is talked about so much is not because of scientists, but because of politicians. Remember that Al Gore said that our last chance to stop it was "now" because if we wait until 2000, it would be too late. If we didn't get rid of oil based methods of transportation by 2000, nothing would matter any more. His book outright stated that we would all be better off if we just buried our cars. After that didn't happen, he then formally changed his prediction to say that the North 'polarized' (sic) ice cap would be gone in 2009.
The hype from politicians has sold. Most people believe in this pseudo-science today. I think this article is a good reminder that things that seem obvious to some people today may seem silly years later.
I can't count how many friends of mine have replaced their 4-year old washing machine with a new piece of crap with thinner metal parts, just because it claimed to be more efficient, and the consumer wanted to spend their money to "save the environment". The result is that we have 3x as many washing machines entering our landfills each year, compared to the past. Cash for Clunkers was another perfect example of increased consumerism in the guise of saving the environment. This type of idiocy has to stop.
Someone is probably going to tell me to "not feed the trolls", and they're probably right.