rukisama85
rukisama85 t1_iqymoix wrote
Reply to comment by His_Desolate_Domain in TIL a German scientist named Alfred Wegener was ridiculed in 1912 for advancing the idea that the continents were adrift. Ridiculed as having “wandering pole plague.” or “Germanic pseudo-science” and accused Wegener of toying with the evidence to spin himself into “a state of auto-intoxication." by Hot----------Dog
Well, if you're serious, the evidence that the continents didn't move was that nobody had ever seen them move, and they were in the same place they always had been as far back as there were records, at least as much as was possible to measure with the technology of the time.
rukisama85 t1_iqyns18 wrote
Reply to comment by Reatona in TIL a German scientist named Alfred Wegener was ridiculed in 1912 for advancing the idea that the continents were adrift. Ridiculed as having “wandering pole plague.” or “Germanic pseudo-science” and accused Wegener of toying with the evidence to spin himself into “a state of auto-intoxication." by Hot----------Dog
This is actually very common among Nobel laureates especially. I think it's probably the ego inflation due to being a Nobel laureate. "I won a Nobel, I must have useful things to say on every subject!"
It's also common between different fields. For instance, though controversial, Egyptologists dismissing geologists saying "hey, some of this stone was weathered by lots of rain over a long period of time."
"Nah, some dude a hundred years ago said this was carved at this time, and we don't want to update our textbooks, so you must be wrong."