why did most scientists disagreed with Alfred Wegener's theory ?

Question

300 millions years ago ,the continents were joined together. Now they are separated and Alfred Wegener proved that they were joined.

The scinentist disagreed y is that?

Answer 1

The same reason they didn't listen to Galileo. Scientists that I've known have always said they have to see it to believe it. Well, it's kind of hard for them to see it if they think the guy is a nut -- or they refuse to see it because it would go in the face of everything they believe.

Very likely they didn't think there was enough "evidence". Like, why aren't elephants naturally in North America? That kind of thing.

Answer 2

Alfred Wegeners Theory

Answer 3

Wegener could only *suggest* that they had been joined. Most scientists agreed that there was circumstantial evidence for that, but their question to Wegener was "Well, what force caused them to move? And then to stop?" And at that time, there were no navigation satellites to measure that they were still moving; neither was there enough understanding of radioactivity in the core to realise that it would necessarily heat up the mantle until it was soft enough to begin convecting, and that those huge convection currents exerted easily enough force to break up continents and move the pieces.

So the argument was between Wegener saying "They must have moved, but we don't know how" and the other scientists saying "No known force could have moved them, so those similarities are just coincidence".

Answer 4

It is quite normal and even proper for new theories to be met with skepticism. If scientists didn't scrutinize new ideas carefully all sorts of wacky ideas would be floating around passing for scientific truth. The more revolutionary an idea the more proof is needed and continental drift was pretty revolutionary.

To be sure, sometimes there are nonscientific reasons for the slow acceptance of new science. Established scientists often have a vested interest in the old way of looking at things. When someone comes along to challenge that, they stand to lose prestige and influence (and funding.)

But over all it is a good thing that the scientific community as a whole looks carefully at new ideas and debates their worthiness.

Answer 5

Well, I don't think he proved anything, he just put forth the idea of continental drift. He noticed the continents sort of fit together, and other bits of information that were available at the time. The reason why few believed him was because there was no proof. Today we have the technology to see the evidence. Also, the evidence that was there was disproved, like marine fossils on mountain tops, well they just said Noah's flood put that there. The idea that continents moved was so crazy and extreme that it was not taken seriously.

Answer 6

Wegener did not have a mechanism for his proposed continental drift. To say, "It just happened," won't convince a lot of scientists. It wasn't until the theory of plate tectonics was formulated (which has differences from simple continental drift) that the idea became more acceptable.