I don’t know to just what degree

I don’t know to just what degree my accusation, in these matters, is of the laziness and feeble-mindedness of scientists. Or, instead of accusing, I am simply pointing out everybody’s inability seriously to spend time upon something which, according to his preconceptions, is nonsense. Scientists, in matters of our data, have been like somebody in Europe, before the year 1492, hearing stories of lands to the west, going out on the ocean for an hour or so, in a row-boat, and then saying, whether exactly in these words, or not: “Oh, hell! there ain’t no America.”