ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the possibility that the history of continental drift theory can be explained as completely rational so long as close attention is paid to the historical developments involved, and narrow and mistaken analyses of rationality are eschewed. It outlines a rational account of the development and reception of drift theory, and discusses the account of scientific growth and change developed by Larry Laudan in his Progress and Its Problems as a heuristic aid. The chapter summarizes the relevant aspects of Laudan’s account of theory choice and also outlines the development of drift theory and seafloor spreading, and apply Laudan’s analysis to the outlined history of drift theory. Laudan maintains that philosophers and historians of science have failed to account for many episodes in the history of science as rational developments because they have either neglected the history of science or employed too narrow a notion of rationality.
