The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

XII : CONCLUSION
i. Looking Forward
It is said that a sound scientific hypothesis should have the
character of predictability. "Predictability" is said to apply
to a hypothesis if the hypothesis predicts the discovery of new
facts that later are actually discovered. An example of predictability
of this sort was the discovery some years ago of
Pluto as the result of calculations based on the theory
of gravitation. Our theory has repeatedly shown that it possesses
this sort of predictability. On one occasion Campbell
worked out, from purely theoretical considerations, the pat-
terns of crustal fractures that would be formed by a dis-
placement. At the same time, in a different city and entirely
independently of him, I was discovering, in the works of W.
H. Hobbs, geological evidence showing that fracture patterns
of precisely this kind actually existed in the rocks.
Only later did we compare
results. If I had started with his
drawings and used them to guide my research in the field,
I would have found approximately the fracture patterns that
he predicted, and I would have found them sooner. On
another occasion when, in 1951, radiocarbon dates showed
the very recent end of the North American ice sheet, I
reached the conclusion from the theory that the beginning
of that glaciation must have been quite recent, and
much more recent than generally believed. At that time
this conclusion could not be tested, because the range o
the radiocarbon method was not great enough. However,
I was aware of the fact that several scientists were work-
ing on the problem of extending the range, and I confidently
looked forward to a confirmation of the theory when and if
the range was extended. I had to wait only until 1954, when
Horberg, as already mentioned, published results showing