give critical description of wagner's continental displacement theory?
Answers
Since his ideas challenged scientists in geology, geophysics, zoogeography and paleontology, it demonstrates the reactions of different communities of scientists. These reactions eventually shut down serious discussion of the concept. The geologist Barry Willis summed it up best:
further discussion of it merely incumbers the literature and befogs the mind of fellow students.
The students' minds would not be befogged. The world had to wait until the 1960's for a wide discussion of the Continental Drift Theory to be restarted.
Why the extreme reaction? Wegener did not even present Continental Drift as a proven theory. He knew he would need more support to convince others. His immediate goal was to have the concept openly discussed. These modest goals did not spare him. His work crossed disciplines. The authorities in the various disciplines attacked him as an amateur that did not fully grasp their own subject. More importantly however, was that even the possibility of Continental Drift was a huge threat to the authorities in each of the disciplines.
Radical viewpoints threaten the authorities in a discipline. Authorities are expert in the current view of their discipline. A radical view could even force experts to start over again. One of Alfred Wegener's critics, the geologist R. Thomas Chamberlain, suggested just that :
"If we are to believe in Wegener's hypothesis we must forget everything which has been learned in the past 70 years and start all over again."