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No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985

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GEOPHYSICS: THE SICK MAN OF SCIENCE

"In order to be a famed geo-scientist and belong to the inclusive club
of fully accepted geophysicists in their unknown thousands, one must
kneel on the hassock and swear allegiance to the following tenets
regardless of any scientific considerations:

* "Tenet 1. That the moment-of-inertia of the Earth has never
changed.
* "Tenet 2. That the Earth contains a large central core composed of
iron.
* "Tenet 3. That the continents are drifting as a result of unknown
forces.

"These must be held with religious fervour, dissenters are just not
to be tolerated, the devotees feeling it their right, and indeed
duty, to defend the creed against all criticism by any means of
chicanery and of sharp-practice within their power, however crude
and improper, so long as they judge they can get away with it, but
all the time representing themselves to the world as acting with
judicial calm in the best interests of their science. It will be
shown that all three of these tenets are wrong, and how their
(naive) acceptance has hamstrung the believers from making progress
in the deep waters of terrestrial science, though not of course in
the worldly world of 'modern science.' Shades of Sir Cyril Burt."

So begins a long technical article by R.A. Lyttleton, author of many
scientific books and papers. (He may lose his union card after this
paper!) Lyttleton proceeds to demonstrate the incorrectness of the
first two tenets above. Lyttleton's reasoning is buttressed by many
scientific observations and so much quantitative reasoning that it is
impossible to encapsulate it all here. Suffice it to say that it all
looks correct, serious, and above-board.

(Lyttleton, R.A.; "Geophysics: The Sick Man of Science," ISCDS
Newsletter, 5:3, December 1984.)

Comment. Now this is interesting. The ISCDS is the International Stop
Continental Drift Society, now defunct. The Society's Newsletter, if
you don't already know, is usually a tongue-in-cheek publication. Not
so here, Lyttleton is deadly serious. Either that or the joke is lost
amid all the equations in the body of his paper!

From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985. © 1985-2000 William R.
Corliss
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