How Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin revolutionized science by refusing to pick a favorite theory

Nature · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin transformed modern scientific inquiry by championing the method of multiple working hypotheses. Rather than clinging to a single ruling theory, he argued that researchers must simultaneously test several competing ideas. This rigorous approach helped him unlock the secrets of Earth's glacial history and planetary formation.

Born in 1843, Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin became a towering figure in American geology. His early work mapping glacial deposits in Wisconsin led him to identify multiple episodes of glaciation during the Pleistocene, establishing a framework for North American glacial stages that remains influential today. His intellectual rigor was defined by his 1890 paper, "The method of multiple working hypotheses," which cautioned scientists against the "parental affection" one might develop for a favorite theory. Instead, he advocated for a process of constant testing and rejection, a precursor to the modern concept of strong inference.

Chamberlin’s curiosity extended far beyond the Earth's surface. In 1899, he proposed that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were a primary driver of climate change, suggesting that fluctuations in the mass of living matter and ocean dissociation could regulate global temperatures. Later, in 1905, he collaborated with Forest Ray Moulton to develop the planetesimal hypothesis. While the theory was eventually discarded in the 1940s due to its incompatibility with Jupiter's angular momentum, its core concept—that planets grow through the gradual collision and accretion of smaller objects—remains a cornerstone of modern planetary science.

Throughout his long career, Chamberlin served as president of the University of Wisconsin and organized the geology department at the University of Chicago. He was a visionary who correctly suspected that the Sun’s energy source was tied to the inner structures of the atom, long before nuclear physics fully matured. By the time of his death in 1928, he had received the inaugural Penrose Medals from both the Society of Economic Geologists and the Geological Society of America. His legacy persists not only in his academic contributions but in the physical markers left in his honor, including craters on the Moon and Mars, and a massive glacial erratic that stood at the University of Wisconsin for over a century.

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