Rabbit Holes in Science

“It appears that the people who would benefit most by this work being discredited have taken the initiative to cause us great difficulty… They might cause us difficulty, but they will not stop the science,” said Stanley Pons, instigator of cold fusion, one of the major scientific scandals of the 20th century. This was certainly inappropriate as a response to the criticism of cold fusion, but the statement could legitimately be applied to several great discoveries that took far too long to be appreciated. Science is a zigzag: theories come and go as they are supported or discredited by data. Some theories seem reasonable in their time, but become untenable as the worldview changes. By the 20th century, standards were higher for promulgating a theory (and indeed this could backfire in the refusal to believe theories that were in fact later shown to be true). The increasing pace of science enabled incredible theories to be disposed of more rapidly, but this still did not stop scientists from sometimes following them down a rabbit hole.