The Place and Power of Myth in Geoscience: An Associate Editor's Perspective

Distinguishing between myth and science is subtle, for both seek to understand the things around us. The characteristic style of mythic thinking is to place special emphasis on a selective conjecture, based typically on the initial observation or recognition of a phenomenon, which is thereafter given privileged status over alternate interpretations. Concepts in geoscience are quite commonly mythic in that sense. The outdated notion of geosynclines as deterministic precursors of orogeny is an apt example, as are central current ideas about suspect terranes, mantle plumes, and global sequence stratigraphy. Geomyths stimulate investigation, but also may retard further progress by dismissing contrary views. Improved understanding of geologic history could be attained more efficaciously by appreciating the mythic quality of many nascent ideas in geoscience, and resisting the temptation to accord geomyths favored status over competing hypotheses. introduction In our discourses, we commonly counterpose myth, taken to be imaginary, and science, conceived as an approach to reality. Both myth and science, however, strive to explain the same features of the natural world. Distinguishing between the two is difficult, posing a challenge that accounts for the persistence of pseudoscience in popular culture. In the days when a god supposedly drove a chariot of fire across the heavens to make the sun shine, that explication of night and day seemed no more mysterious to most people than life itself. It is not easy even now to define myth separately from science. Each attempts a comprehensive view of our surroundings, and each provides an explanation for some salient package of observations giving rise to quandary. It is perhaps the defining style of mythic thinking to build selectively upon some particular conjecture that is given privileged status against contradictory observations. Rejecting any myth typically requires more conclusive evidence than its initial invention em- ployed. background I contend that geomyths have played a role in the evolution of our science, and are still with us today. A preordained geotectonic cycle, derived conceptually from the durable myth of geosynclines, held center stage only a few decades ago until plate tectonics showed a better way to reconcile observation with concept. At present, tectonics has its suspect terranes, petrology its mantle plumes, and stratigraphy its global sequences. Each of these concepts is a myth in the sense that each expands selectively from a narrowly focused appraisal of an issue to embrace far-ranging analysis, and each places an extra onus of argumentation upon potential detractors. The logic of any geomyth rests upon an inductive leap extrapolated from some particular observation or assumption inferred to lie at the root of an issue being addressed, and rejects the spirit of the familiar method of multiple working hypotheses (Chamberlin, 1897). The style of myth instead posits dominance of a single perception to the exclusion of others. This approach makes geomyths difficult to falsify, yet most agree (with Gilbert, 1886) that essential tests of scientific ideas must embody attempted disproof, rather than a search for confirmation (Popper, 1962).