Volume 3.5
This essay examines how in the twentieth century established scientists blocked the development of scientific work about the theory of continental drift. There are many similarities between this blocking behaviour and the manner in which the IPCC and the scientists who believe the IPCC, block scientific work that is not consistent with the IPCC doctrine.
Until the mid-1960s, most geologists believed that the surface structure of planet Earth had been fixed for many hundreds of millions of years. This outlook is also known as ‘fixism’. The leading scientists of the period had pronounced this to be true; it was set out as a scientific truth in many standard geology textbooks of that period.
The theory of continental drift (‘mobilism’) held that the dominant theory was false and that the land masses had been drifting for hundreds of millions of years, were still drifting and would continue to drift. They would collide and split apart resulting in earthquakes and volcanoes.
The established scientists opposed this with a distinctly unscientific vehemence.
Reasons advanced for the extraordinary unscientific behaviour of hundreds of scientists, include tunnel-vision, groupthink, herd-like behaviour, persistent bullying by senior scientists, personal jealousies, empire building, loyalty to colleagues and institutions, arrogance, vicious pettiness ignorance, lack of moral courage, a visceral reluctance of some very senior scientists to acknowledge they were wrong.
There were cover-ups, including keeping the main geology textbooks free of evidence indicating fixism to be false.
The extraordinary antiscientific vehemence shown by hundreds of established scientists is characteristic of proponents of the IPCC doctrine.
In relation to the theory of continental drift, inevitably scientific breakthroughs – plate tectonics – outside of the scientific outlook of the established scientists, demonstrated that the theories of the established scientists were false. This suggests a pathway out of the IPCC debacle.
The complete essay is here: Lessons from the Continental Drift controversy for the IPCC debacle by Richard Mackey.