I. Not the Mechanism
1: Two Visions of the Earth
2: The Collapse of Thermal Contraction
3: To Reconcile Historical Geology with Isotasy: Continental
Drift
4: Drift Mechanisms in the 1920s
II. Theory and Method
5: From Fact to Theory
6: The Short Step Backward
7: Uniformitarianism and Unity
III. A Revolution in Acceptance
8: Direct and Indirect Evidence
9: An Evidentiary and Epistemic Shift
10: The Depersonalization of Geology
"Oreskes (Univ. of California, San Diego) argues that 'science is
about how belief gets formulated,' and that the criteria used in
the formulation of belief are historically contingent and play a
significant role in constraining the boundaries of scientific
knowledge in a cultural and social context. Using the history of
evolution of the continental drift theory, she discusses how US
earth scientists came to reject this theory in the 1920s and '30s
because
accepting the ideas supporting it would have forced them to change
their methodological beliefs and valued forms of scientific
practice. Oreskes utilizes the case of the history of continental
drift to
show that scientific methodology is diverse and evolves through
time, and that the mechanics of scientific research and the context
of discovery are important, just as the context of justification is
important in evaluating the generation of scientific knowledge. . .
. An exemplary resource. Recommended. All levels."--Choice
"With all their resources, American geoscientists do much of the
world's best geology. Thus some of them may be embarrassed that
their predecessors were so slow to embrace continental drift or
convection currents in the mantle and were initially so resistant
to the doctrines of plate tectonics. Although there must be
historical reasons for this reluctance to accept mobilist
doctrines, hitherto they have not been examined in detail. Now
Naomi Oreskes has
accomplished the task in The Rejection of Continental Drift. Based
on extensive archival research and Oreskes's studies over the past
20 years, her admirably clear and well-illustrated account is
scientifically, philosophically, historically, and sociologically
well-informed. All is achieved without recourse to esoteric detail
or any mathematics: she is after concepts."--Science
"During the 1920s and '30s, prominent American geologists were
generally opposed, sometimes virulently so, to continental drift, a
new theory proposed by Alfred Wegener. On the opposite side of a
furtively widening transatlantic schism, earth scientists were
inclined to explore the idea, or at least to regard it with more
muted skepticism. Wegener's original 'theory' was incomplete and
mechanically unsound, and some of his European colleagues actually
bent
their effort toward developing physical models in support of drift.
After all, the theory did summarize a set of observations that
hinted at a broader vision of geological mapping than was currently
in
vogue. However, Americans appear to have been committed to
demonstrating the impossibility of drift. Naomi Oreskes has
carefully sifted the archival ashes of the early stages of this
conflagration, producing an analysis of scientific practice that
challenges previous accounts of the drift controversy."--American
Scientist
"On April 7, 1998, there was a note in Eos by David Stern that
included a perceptive and amusing quotation from Teddy Bullard on
the question, which has been recently reached something of a
culmination in an important new book, The Rejection of Continental
Drift, by Naomi Oreskes and published by Oxford in 1999."--EOS
"Oreskes (Univ. of California, San Diego) argues that 'science is
about how belief gets formulated,' and that the criteria used in
the formulation of belief are historically contingent and play a
significant role in constraining the boundaries of scientific
knowledge in a cultural and social context. Using the history of
evolution of the continental drift theory, she discusses how US
earth scientists came to reject this theory in the 1920s and '30s
because
accepting the ideas supporting it would have forced them to change
their methodological beliefs and valued forms of scientific
practice. Oreskes utilizes the case of the history of continental
drift to
show that scientific methodology is diverse and evolves through
time, and that the mechanics of scientific research and the context
of discovery are important, just as the context of justification is
important in evaluating the generation of scientific knowledge. . .
. An exemplary resource. Recommended. All levels."--Choice
"With all their resources, American geoscientists do much of the
world's best geology. Thus some of them may be embarrassed that
their predecessors were so slow to embrace continental drift or
convection currents in the mantle and were initially so resistant
to the doctrines of plate tectonics. Although there must be
historical reasons for this reluctance to accept mobilist
doctrines, hitherto they have not been examined in detail. Now
Naomi Oreskes has
accomplished the task in The Rejection of Continental Drift. Based
on extensive archival research and Oreskes's studies over the past
20 years, her admirably clear and well-illustrated account is
scientifically, philosophically, historically, and sociologically
well-informed. All is achieved without recourse to esoteric detail
or any mathematics: she is after concepts."--Science
"During the 1920s and '30s, prominent American geologists were
generally opposed, sometimes virulently so, to continental drift, a
new theory proposed by Alfred Wegener. On the opposite side of a
furtively widening transatlantic schism, earth scientists were
inclined to explore the idea, or at least to regard it with more
muted skepticism. Wegener's original 'theory' was incomplete and
mechanically unsound, and some of his European colleagues actually
bent
their effort toward developing physical models in support of drift.
After all, the theory did summarize a set of observations that
hinted at a broader vision of geological mapping than was currently
in
vogue. However, Americans appear to have been committed to
demonstrating the impossibility of drift. Naomi Oreskes has
carefully sifted the archival ashes of the early stages of this
conflagration, producing an analysis of scientific practice that
challenges previous accounts of the drift controversy."--American
Scientist
"On April 7, 1998, there was a note in Eos by David Stern that
included a perceptive and amusing quotation from Teddy Bullard on
the question, which has been recently reached something of a
culmination in an important new book, The Rejection of Continental
Drift, by Naomi Oreskes and published by Oxford in 1999."--EOS
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