why are the reactions to Wagner's "continental drift" theory hostile? what triggered it?

Answer 1

Likely the same Young Earth Creationists that are ranting against Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Hubble's Big Bang Theory and just about everything else that suggests that the Earth is more than 6000 years old and took more than a week to form.

Answer 2

Reactions to Wagner's (sorry! WEGENER's of course!) theory (at the time he proposed it) were hostile, because no one could (a) prove it, and (b) suggest a mechanism.

The theory was subsequently proven by the discovery of magnetic anomalies ("stripes") in the basalt lavas of the ocean floor. The anomalies get older away from the mid oceanic ridge. Plate Tectonics, putting it very simplistically, is the mechanism proposed to explain the movement of continents, both in terms of sea-floor spreading (creation of oceanic crust) at the mid oceanic ridges, and subduction of crust at destructive continental plate margins.

The mechanism is NOT catastrophic (in the biblical / creationist sense) in that the process takes place at a rate of centimetres per year, over many millions of years of geological time. However, some of the results can be catastrophic (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions etc), most of which take place at the continental plate boundaries and are explainable by plate tectonic processes.

Answer 3

Once again the anti-creationists (Red P) embarass themselves with their ignorance!

Before the 1960s, most geologists were adamant that the continents were stationary. A handful promoted the notion that the continents had moved (continental drift), but they were accused by the majority of indulging in pseudo-scientific fantasy. Today, that opinion has reversed—plate tectonics, incorporating continental drift, is the ruling theory. (Interestingly, it was a creationist, Antonio Snider, who in 1859 first proposed horizontal movement of continents catastrophically during the Genesis flood.

Catastrophic plate tectonics and continental drift are certainly not inconsistent witht he Creation model.

Answer 4

Sorry to be pedantic, but it was Alfred Wegener who came up with the theory of continental drift. Wagner wrote those magnificant operas.

Answer 5

people didn't believe that continents could just plough through oceans, and physicists such as Jeffreys argued that it was not physically possible for that to happen

Answer 6

The argument for plate tectonics can be found here :-