Science Scraps
Three famous feuds between giants
 The
scrap over whether birds descended from dinosaurs (see main story) brings
to mind, for historians of science like the University of Kansas' Robert
DeKosky, other feuds:
- In the late 17th century, Isaac Newton and Christiaan
Huygens differed about the nature of light. Newton said that light
was made of particles, while Huygens noted its wavelike properties.
Who won? Both. "Traveling across space," DeKosky says, "light acts
like a wave. But when it's emitted or absorbed, it behaves not like
a wave but like a series of discrete particles." The two scientists
respected each other.
- Though the idea that all matter is composed of
atoms traces to the Greeks, there were still doubters as late as
the end of the 19th century. Ernest Mach was one of the last serious
scientists to resist the idea -- largely because, even if they did
exist, they were, he believed, unknowable. Rival Ludwig Boltzmann
was a strong advocate for the atom. Then came discoveries about
radioactivity, X-rays and the electron that nailed down the existence
of atoms. Boltzmann, unfortunately, killed himself before the controversy
was entirely resolved -- in his favor.
- Another celebrated late 19th century battle, between
Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Marsh, centered on vertebrate fossils
collected in the American West. Between 1870 and the late 1890s,
the two classified more than 130 new species of North American dinosaurs.
The two men, like Mach and Boltzman, "really did not like each other,"
DeKosky said. "Cope and Marsh were rich and ambitious, and each
wanted to be the grand poohbah of vertebrate paleontology."
Three quick questions for DeKosky.
What's at stake in these feuds?
"Ego, position, prestige. Mostly ego."
How do scientists protect themselves from ego
damage when they find out they've been wrong?
"In most cases, both sides continue to maintain
their fundamental positions."
And is there ordinarily a clear winner and
loser? Are the winners and losers known in the scientist's lifetime?
"It's impossible to answer that on the general
level. Each controversy is its own little universe, so to speak. How
far ahead of the disputants do you want to go? If you go far enough
out, both turn out to be wrong in some way."
Leonard "Kris" Krishtalka, director of the
KU Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, would agree
with that last point but disagree with DeKosky about how scientists
protect their egos when they're proven wrong.
"It's rare that scientists, even those with
big egos," Krishtalka says, "will maintain indefensible positions in
the face of incontrovertible evidence."
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