[Kevin OMalley]

"Except for the drifting continents part."
***Actually, the tectonic plate theory is instructive here. Most scientists didn't accept that theory at the time it was proposed -- it was too outlandish. Eventually, those scientists died off and were replaced with a new generation of open-minded scientists who gave it a whirl and verified much of the theory. I see that a lot of catastrophism was summarily dismissed when it was first proposed by guys like Velikovsky, but now it is readily accepted as part of different cosmology theories.

[spinestein]

[I see that a lot of catastrophism was summarily dismissed when it was first proposed by guys like Velikovsky]



Catastrophism has a much older history than that, but more importantly, any new theory (especially one which makes outstanding claims) has to have established scientific laws to support it.

I've read "Worlds in Collision" by Velikovsky and all of his physical predictions are invalidated by the well established laws of physics that I've studied up through college.

Just as one example, his theory that Venus could pass by the Earth and cause the Earth's rotation to stop and then restart is nonsense according to the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of angular momentum, among others, and there are no known forces that could explain such an event.