Scientists fighting

Newton versus Leibniz ("A Clash of Titans"), Lord Kelvin versus Geologists and Biologists ("Age of the Earth"), Wegener versus Everybody ("Continental Drift"), Derek Freeman versus Margaret Mead ("Nature versus Nurture"). These are a few of the chapter titles in Great Feuds in Science: Ten of the Liveliest Disputes Ever by Hal Hellman (509.22H368g). Some of these "fights" are about famous intellectual disagreements which have long since been resolved. For example, modern earth science is based on what we we now understand about continental drift - even though Alfred Wegener's critics labeled his theory "preposterous" and even "dangerous." Some of the disagreements in this book are still disagreements and probably always will be. Darwin's theory of evolution, for example. Some are just plain fun to read about, though. Nineteenth-century paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh made the front pages after leveling charges at one another, including, but not limited to, "plagiarism, incompetence, and even the smashing of fossils to prevent others from getting at them." Throw into the mix that Marsh was for evolution and Cope against it. Hoo boy, time to get out the boxing gloves.