Alfred Wegener, the “Father of Continental Drift,” which was the forebear of sea-floor spreading and plate tectonics, began his pursuit of the famous hypothesis at the beginning of the twentieth century. He had seen a “jigsaw-puzzle” fit in the coastlines of continents separated by an ocean and surmised that the fit couldn’t be coincidental. He then went on to research the possibility that the continents had formed when a larger continent (Pangaea) had broken apart. Unfortunately for Wegener, the geologic tools of his time were inadequate for his pursuit, and the prevailing view of Earth’s formation kept others from accepting his thesis. It wasn’t until after his death that geologists were able to establish the continental breakup with irrefutable evidence—though Wegener’s evidence based on petrology and paleontology was quite extensive.
Familiar with puzzles because my mother worked them on a card table during the winter, I made the same observation Wegener had when I first saw a world map and the shapes of the continents. I distinctly remember saying to my father, “Gee, they look like pieces of a puzzle.” I don’t know why I remember that so clearly, maybe because I eventually became a professor of geology courses. As a very young child, I didn’t publish or even pursue my observation as Wegener had, but eventually, I learned I had acquired knowledge someone had already acquired and, also, that much discovery is rediscovery. The “nothing new under the sun” maxim is true for most of our knowledge. Occasionally, someone does something that is more than just a refinement of human knowledge, but generally, we live not as discoverers as much as we live as rediscoverers. And that’s the reason each generation faces the same problems. As each generation rediscovers, it can devote only part of its time to instructing the next generation in its “newfound” knowledge of old knowledge.
Today, even elementary school texts have information about sea-floor spreading and plate tectonics, but at the time of my “discovery” no such texts existed. It really wasn’t until the 1960s that information about Earth’s moveable lithosphere and crust became the facts du jour in popularized science accounts. It was about the same time that texts began to incorporate geologic information acquired after Wegener’s death, such as the discovery of the rifts that separated long, relatively young volcanic mountain chains in the oceans.
But discoveries and rediscoveries in science are one thing; they aren’t apparently the same for social and psychological matters. Take, for example, the “rediscovery” of socialism that is sweeping through the current “young” generation. Now, a century after Marx’s communism was corrupted into dictatorships that resulted in the deaths of tens of millions and the impoverishment of many more, we have a generation of people who think that socialism is the panacea, the way to equality for all, for a life of ease provided for by some benevolent state.
Once relatively prosperous Venezuela is the example of rediscovery without knowledge of past discovery. Dependence upon drugs is another example. And there’s little, sad to say, that any older generation can do to prevent a newer generation from its random rediscovery of what might already be available. Apparently, it’s the nature of generational gaps to perpetuate themselves. There’s an inherent rift valley that separates all generations; yet, much on either side of the rift is merely a mirror image of the other side, just as the ocean floors are separated yet the same. So, the continents of generations drift apart only to find themselves constructing a new Pangaea that will, in its time, also breakup.
Of course, there’s always refinement in rediscovery. THC is more abundant in marijuana buds today than it was in the 1960s. But the current generation of THC consumers believe they have "discovered" a harmless drug. Capitalism-tinged socialism and socialism-tinged capitalism are the political, economic, and social refinements of the twenty-first century. Even among geologists, there are refinements obtained from various instruments unavailable to Wegener, such as seismic tomography and ocean drilling rigs, and from formerly unknown fossilized organisms and mineral analyses. Things have remained the same with changes. Oxymoronic, right?
So, I like so many before me, often simply “rediscover” when I believe I discover. Am I not in this piece simply rediscovering the thoughts of George Santayana? “…When experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I guess I was a little savage in looking at that map and seeing what Wegener had seen decades before I was born.
Wait! One more. When I was eight, I asked my dad to take me to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh to see the dinosaurs. We walked into the dinosaur hall, and I looked up at the Apatosaurus (then called Brontosaurus) and at the Diplodocus. I said, “The head on the Apatosaurus doesn’t look right. It was a plant eater, but it had elongate teeth like a carnivore.” It was, in fact, the head of a Camarasaurus. Topsy-turvy, right? I, a youth, had “discovered” what years later (1978) the paleontologists Dave Berman and Jack Mcintosh finally noted and changed (1979). The Apatosaurus has a different head today (probably not its original head, but one appropriate to the species). Just as I hadn’t published anything on continents when I was five or six, I didn’t publish my discovery on paleontology when I was eight. Had I done so, many children would not have walked around until 1979 with a faulty image of an “Apatacamarasaurus” in their heads. So, yes, every generation will have some insights, some, as in my youthful case, never acted on. And yes, every once in a long time and unlike me, some youthful Einstein will come along to change the world. But generally, we’re all about rediscovering. We’re all somewhat “savage,” to use Santayana’s term.
What will you “rediscover” today?
Familiar with puzzles because my mother worked them on a card table during the winter, I made the same observation Wegener had when I first saw a world map and the shapes of the continents. I distinctly remember saying to my father, “Gee, they look like pieces of a puzzle.” I don’t know why I remember that so clearly, maybe because I eventually became a professor of geology courses. As a very young child, I didn’t publish or even pursue my observation as Wegener had, but eventually, I learned I had acquired knowledge someone had already acquired and, also, that much discovery is rediscovery. The “nothing new under the sun” maxim is true for most of our knowledge. Occasionally, someone does something that is more than just a refinement of human knowledge, but generally, we live not as discoverers as much as we live as rediscoverers. And that’s the reason each generation faces the same problems. As each generation rediscovers, it can devote only part of its time to instructing the next generation in its “newfound” knowledge of old knowledge.
Today, even elementary school texts have information about sea-floor spreading and plate tectonics, but at the time of my “discovery” no such texts existed. It really wasn’t until the 1960s that information about Earth’s moveable lithosphere and crust became the facts du jour in popularized science accounts. It was about the same time that texts began to incorporate geologic information acquired after Wegener’s death, such as the discovery of the rifts that separated long, relatively young volcanic mountain chains in the oceans.
But discoveries and rediscoveries in science are one thing; they aren’t apparently the same for social and psychological matters. Take, for example, the “rediscovery” of socialism that is sweeping through the current “young” generation. Now, a century after Marx’s communism was corrupted into dictatorships that resulted in the deaths of tens of millions and the impoverishment of many more, we have a generation of people who think that socialism is the panacea, the way to equality for all, for a life of ease provided for by some benevolent state.
Once relatively prosperous Venezuela is the example of rediscovery without knowledge of past discovery. Dependence upon drugs is another example. And there’s little, sad to say, that any older generation can do to prevent a newer generation from its random rediscovery of what might already be available. Apparently, it’s the nature of generational gaps to perpetuate themselves. There’s an inherent rift valley that separates all generations; yet, much on either side of the rift is merely a mirror image of the other side, just as the ocean floors are separated yet the same. So, the continents of generations drift apart only to find themselves constructing a new Pangaea that will, in its time, also breakup.
Of course, there’s always refinement in rediscovery. THC is more abundant in marijuana buds today than it was in the 1960s. But the current generation of THC consumers believe they have "discovered" a harmless drug. Capitalism-tinged socialism and socialism-tinged capitalism are the political, economic, and social refinements of the twenty-first century. Even among geologists, there are refinements obtained from various instruments unavailable to Wegener, such as seismic tomography and ocean drilling rigs, and from formerly unknown fossilized organisms and mineral analyses. Things have remained the same with changes. Oxymoronic, right?
So, I like so many before me, often simply “rediscover” when I believe I discover. Am I not in this piece simply rediscovering the thoughts of George Santayana? “…When experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I guess I was a little savage in looking at that map and seeing what Wegener had seen decades before I was born.
Wait! One more. When I was eight, I asked my dad to take me to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh to see the dinosaurs. We walked into the dinosaur hall, and I looked up at the Apatosaurus (then called Brontosaurus) and at the Diplodocus. I said, “The head on the Apatosaurus doesn’t look right. It was a plant eater, but it had elongate teeth like a carnivore.” It was, in fact, the head of a Camarasaurus. Topsy-turvy, right? I, a youth, had “discovered” what years later (1978) the paleontologists Dave Berman and Jack Mcintosh finally noted and changed (1979). The Apatosaurus has a different head today (probably not its original head, but one appropriate to the species). Just as I hadn’t published anything on continents when I was five or six, I didn’t publish my discovery on paleontology when I was eight. Had I done so, many children would not have walked around until 1979 with a faulty image of an “Apatacamarasaurus” in their heads. So, yes, every generation will have some insights, some, as in my youthful case, never acted on. And yes, every once in a long time and unlike me, some youthful Einstein will come along to change the world. But generally, we’re all about rediscovering. We’re all somewhat “savage,” to use Santayana’s term.
What will you “rediscover” today?
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