Agreed, Chris. The fact that such examples can be found is why I chose my words carefully: "overwhelmingly _likely_ to turn out to be a good description of reality." For every example such as the one you cite, or the opposition to Wegner's theories for instance, there are hundreds where the consensus built gradually, and arrived at a generally correct answer, without the majority of scientists in the subject area being wrong. Most of those are unknown to we lay people because there never was any serious controversy or opposition. It's interesting to note that nearly the only time scientific consensus is opposed, it is on ideological grounds. We hear a lot about Creation "science" v. evolution, but we hear nothing about serious opposition to the Copernican theory. The Bible was much more clear about the origin of man than it was about orbital mechanics. Evolution, in its broad outline, is now every bit as well-established as the Copernican theory.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but did want to clarify my point.

BTW - you may or may not be aware that on the Newsgroup sci.geo.earthquakes there is a fairly literate poster, with at least a couple of followers, who, apparently quite seriously, advances the "Earth Expansion Theory." The theory is, in some ways, internally consistent, and explains some observations - but not nearly as well as plate tectonics does. And the two theories ARE, of course, mutually exclusive. That poster rejects virtually every aspect of plate tectonics. He's been at it for at least the past couple of years.

Oh - and thanks for reminding me that it wasn't all that many years ago that a shrinking earth was a working hypothesis! But - I didn't think so recent that you would have been taught it in elementary school! When was that?

MW
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