Scientific truth is not always as easy to pin down as we think.
This is not always the case, but let me give you an example.
Dark matter (black holes) out in space is not observable. We see how other observable masses nearby act, and we make inferences about that which we can not see.
If a new method were developed to explain how dark matter behaves, this would more likely lead to a decade long argument over methods than a revolution within the field of physics.
Or said better: Scientific revolutions are often slower than we assume.
Over time, as the new method becomes more accepted, more professors and researchers clinging to the old method would begin to retire and eventually die.
I have seen the same in the social sciences. Discovering a new “truth” does not often change people’s minds. It leads to an argument over procedure.
Years ago, I heard my dad say it this way:
“Science often advances one funeral at a time.“
Exactly.
As physicist Max Planck once observed, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.”
-Adam Grant, Originals