Through the years there has always been an argument between the "politically correct"
scientists and the innovators. Hundreds worshipped Lord Kelvin; the sun had not spots;
the earth was flat, there were four elements etc. To demonstrate that these "facts"
were not the case was heresy and subject to the stirctest repromands. Those believe
that science is a set of "FACTS" which must be believed as tenets in a religion, in my
view should be in the clergy, not in science. The facts of today are the fallacies of
tomorrow. Who would have thought matter teleportation would be possible using
entangled pairs, yet Science News reports a group of scientists are on the verge
of doing this (Science News, Vol 160, p 196, Sept. 29,2001).
What appears unlikely (and poor science) to some today may be tomorrow's paradigms.
Geophysicists should learn from the history of their science. Thirty years ago
plate tectonics was viewed as "IMPOSSIBLE", bad science etc. because it was
based on observations, not hard scientific FACTS. 10 years ago earthquakes COULD
NOT BE triggered outside the classical rupture zone. Then came the Lander earthquake
and observations that had been scoffed at for decades suddenly became the
rage among "good" scientists. Science is always based on observation and
experimentation, yes even thought experimentation. Observation leads to scientific
hypothesis and laws. Scientific laws are not given out on stone tablets at Mt.
Menlo Park. They require decades and centuries of observation by trained observers who
many times do not have an inkling of what the law ought to be (read amateurs here).
No, in my opinion, the only BAD science is that which is practiced by people
who do not make observation the cornerstone of their science, and rely too heavily
on what is accepted and acceptable in the current thinking.