Fate of The Man Who Proposed Continental Drift

Alfred Wegener wasn’t a geologist, but he was
responsible for developing the idea of continental drift.
The idea ruined him, as mainstream science took aim at
him for manufacturing or outright ignoring evidence and
publishing his ludicrous theories. For years, his served as
a cautionary tale to young scientists on why theories too
extreme were nothing more than pseudoscience; Wegener
tragically died before the academic world realized that he
was right.
The Whole Bushel
There are plenty of scientific theories that you might think
of as earth-shattering, revolutionary, or controversial, but
the idea of continental drift probably isn’t on the short list.
It seems pretty obvious today, but when a German
meteorologist first proposed it, he paid for it.
Alfred Wegener was the first to notice that the continents
fit together like puzzle pieces—pieces that had been
dropped and chewed on a bit by a dog, perhaps, but
pieces nonetheless. He had more than just a map that
looked like it might go together, too. He cited the
presence of the same types of plant and animal fossils in
South America as there were in Africa, and he also
outlined rock formations that seemed to go together,
along with the same types of rocks, sediment, and
formations.
The whole thing started in December 1910, when a friend
of Wegener’s had been given a new atlas. It was then that
he noticed the similarities in the coastlines, but he didn’t
officially present his theory until two years later in a
lecture to the Geological Association in Frankfurt,
Germany.
It went completely unnoticed.
Wegener went off to fight in World War I, and while he
was in hospital recuperating from his wounds, he wrote a
book on his findings. It was the book that quite literally
shook the geological world to its foundation.
Part of the problem was that his findings absolutely
negated those of a University of Chicago geologist named
Thomas Chamberlin. Popular in the scientific community,
Chamberlin had been elevated to a place alongside the
likes of Galileo by his colleagues. In other words, he could
certainly do no wrong. And he thought that the Earth was
formed just the way it was right then. Continents were
fixed in place, and the idea that they could move was just
ludicrous.
Wegener was attacked from all sides. German scientists
stood alongside American and British ones to condemn
the theory and write it off as the insane ramblings of a
man with absolutely no credentials, schooling, or
education in the geological field. (He was a university
lecturer and experienced Arctic explorer, but that didn’t
count for much.)
He was accused of nothing short of making up evidence
to support his outlandish claims, and of ignoring the facts
and just making up theories fairly irresponsibly. He was a
purveyor of “Germanic pseudo-science” according to one
critic, and the fiercest (or at least, most outspoken) of
those critics was Chamberlin the younger.
Wegener died in 1930. A colleague had made a grievous
error, and Wegener was forced to make a trip across
Greenland, in November, to make a supply delivery to
some of his researchers. His career in meteorology had
been more successful than his career in geology, but he
died on the way back.
His body was found by later explorers. He never knew
that, decades later, science would prove him right.
That wasn’t until the 1960s, though, and for a long time,
continental drift wasn’t just forgotten about, it was
avoided. Wegener’s work was a cautionary tale, given to
newcomers in the field, along with a warning about what
happens to scientists that overstep accepted theory. In
fact, in World War II, there was another salvo of brutal
attacks fired at the idea. But in the end, he was right.