memes

European geologists were generally receptive to the theory as early as the the 1920s, and by the 1940s it was the working assumption for most field work.

The only geologists to reject the theory aggressively were a group in North America who read a lower quality translation (of the original German book presenting the theory) which may not have been adequately checked for tone.

The author was perceived to be openly arrogant and dismissive of current work in the field. For this reason, his theory’s rate of acceptance among US geologists lagged behind.

It's like the new enlightenment is just right now.

We are also going to look back at bioteck from now and be horrified in a not so distant future.

To oversimplify: there was not a demonstrable process that could explain the movement of huge sheets of solid rock, that's where the reluctance came from. It wasn't until the ocean floor mapping of the 60s that we understood the non-random nature earthquakes and the existence of mid-ocean ridges that lead the scientific community to accept "seafloor spreading" as the mechanism of Alfred Wegener's proposed continental drift.

Just pointing, but people had been speculating about tectonic plates for a really long time. A century before geologists finally allowed one of them to point it and accepted looking into it, fringe scientists already had an overwhelming amount of evidence.

Well now I am hella curious: What did they think caused earthquakes before the 60s? 🤔

May I suggest a light read? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions

I figure they first needed Inge Lehmann to figure out that there was an inner core, outer core, and mantle which she didn't do until 1933, eight years after she started doing seismology. And it took three years before she published it which brings us to 1936. It was accepted fairly quickly but then came the war. And after the war seismology was really big on listening to nukes. Sixties makes sense.

Inge Lehmann - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inge_Lehmann

This scene was overheard in a 1950s pediatrician's office, who then offered the soft-pack of filterless "toasted" smokes to the 8yr old and her mother.

"Take those lead paint chips out of your mouth! .... wipes his face with some asbestos .... now here mommy will show you how to make smoke rings ... cough, cough, hack, hack, wheeeeeeeze"

Only if the kid was overweight, though