A bad bit of stone

Researchers have often made the accumulation of scientific understanding analogous to the construction of a building (Darwin, for instance, did it in the conclusion of Animals and Plants Under Domestication), and William Buckland was no exception. In discussing objections to knowledge gleaned from geology in his contribution to the Bridgewater Treatises, Buckland wrote;

It must be candidly admitted that the season has not yet arrived when a perfect theory of the whole earth can be fixedly and finally established, since we have not yet before us all the facts on which such a theory may eventually be founded; but, in the meanwhile, we have abundant evidence of numerous and indisputable phenomena, each establishing important and undeniable conclusions; and the aggregate of these conclusions, as they gradually accumulate, will form the basis of future theories, each more and more nearly approximating to perfect: the first, and second, and third story of our edifice may be soundly and solidly constructed, although time must still elapse before the roof and pinnacles of the perfect building can be completed. Admitting, therefore, that we have yet much to learn, we contend that much sound knowledge has been already acquired; and we protest against the rejection of established parts, because the whole is not yet made perfect.

Yet some "established parts" have to be rejected if found to be false or to jeopardize the rest of the structure. If a previously accepted hypothesis has been shown to be false, or a fact misinterpreted, a correction must be made. Buckland knew from his own experience. In the fourth (1869) edition of Geology and Mineralogy (kindly sent to me by Mr. Barton), Buckland's son Francis relates his father's attention to the construction of "Tom Tower" of Oxford in a biographical sketch;

When the turrets of "Tom Tower," of Christ Church, Oxford, were undergoing repairs, during the long vacation, [William Buckland] had reason to suspect that all was not right. It was impossible for him to ascend by the slender scaffolding to these turrets; so, from the window of his house (he was then Canon of Christ Church) he bethought him of watching the masons through the telescope (a very good one) which he used to examine distant geological section, &c. At last the unsuspecting mason, working as he thought far above the ken of man, put in a faulty bit of stone; my father on the look-out below, detected him through the telescope, and almost frightened the man out of his wits, when, coming out into the quadrangle, he admonished him to bring down directly "that bad bit of stone he had just built into the turret."

The same goes for science. We are always on the lookout for "bad bits of stone" that might harm the larger edifice we are trying to build, even if it takes years of squabbling to sort out.