3. A now-discredited theory of climatology previously popular in the American West, belief that “rain follows the plow” was commonplace in the United States
Originating during the late-1860s and 1870s during the westward expansion of American settlement, the sudden greening of previously yellow and dry vegetation provoked sustained scientific inquiry and speculation. Led by noted climatologist Cyrus Thomas, due to a seeming correlation between the increased migration and rainfall, theories were developed attempting to connect the two occurrences. Concluding an uptake in soil cultivation coincided with the augmented rainfall, Thomas reasoned – in violation of the fundamental scientific principle that correlation does not equal causation – the two events must be related.
Arguing the plowing of the soil exposed the moisture beneath to the sky, Thomas’ proposition quickly became adopted as widespread fact within only a few years as a natural affirmation of Manifest Destiny. Resulting in the mass dynamiting of the Great Plains during the 1870s in the hope of provoking greater rainfall, Thomas’s supposition is now widely regarded as one of the archetypal logical fallacies to learn from. Prompting short-term and localized climatological changes due to sudden inversions of terrain, these fanatical attempts to produce more rain is often credited with worsening the Dust Bowl of the early twentieth century and depriving other regions of rain rather than generating more in total.
