Numerical answer
The four sentences below, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Arrange them in order and key in the correct sequence of numbers.
1. Yet by the time the fossil evidence became undeniable, the theory had already been abandoned by most of the scientific establishment.
2. In the early twentieth century, the idea that continents had once been joined and later drifted apart was dismissed by most geologists as fanciful.
3. Wegener, a meteorologist rather than a geologist, lacked a convincing mechanism to explain how such massive landmasses could move, which made his proposal easy to reject.
4. It took the discovery of seafloor spreading decades later to supply the missing mechanism and rehabilitate the theory as plate tectonics.
1. Yet by the time the fossil evidence became undeniable, the theory had already been abandoned by most of the scientific establishment.
2. In the early twentieth century, the idea that continents had once been joined and later drifted apart was dismissed by most geologists as fanciful.
3. Wegener, a meteorologist rather than a geologist, lacked a convincing mechanism to explain how such massive landmasses could move, which made his proposal easy to reject.
4. It took the discovery of seafloor spreading decades later to supply the missing mechanism and rehabilitate the theory as plate tectonics.
Show answer and solution
Answer: 2314
Sentence 2 introduces the dismissed theory of continental drift. Sentence 3 explains why it was rejected (Wegener's missing mechanism). Sentence 1 notes that fossil evidence arrived too late to save the theory's reputation at the time. Sentence 4 resolves the story with the later discovery of seafloor spreading. The logical chain (theory → reason for rejection → early evidence too late → eventual resolution) gives the order 2-3-1-4.
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