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Frank Debenham
(26 Dec 1883 - 23 Nov 1965)
Australian-English geographer and geologist who co-founded (1920) and was the first director (1920-46) of the Scott Polar Research Institute. With Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic Terra Nova Expedition (1910-1913, he did geological and mapping work in Victoria Land, Antarctica, but was prevented by a knee injury from being on Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole.
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Science Quotes by Frank Debenham (1 quote)
[In Adelie Land, Antarctica, a howling river of] wind, 50 miles wide, blows off the plateau, month in and month out, at an average velocity of 50 m.p.h. As a source of power this compares favorably with 6,000 tons of water falling every second over Niagara Falls. I will not further anticipate some H. G. Wells of the future who will ring the antarctic with power-producing windmills; but the winds of the Antarctic have to be felt to be believed, and nothing is quite impossible to physicists and engineers.
— Frank Debenham
Speaking at convention of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Norwich (1935). As quoted in 'Science: One Against Darwin', Time (23 Sep 1935).
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
