I think a lot of the problem arises from sheer inertia built into the university system from the tenure system. The old guard is protective of its turf by its very nature and add tenure to academe and then political granting and funding of research dollars based on giving too much weight to the “Appeal-to-Authority Fallacy” and new ideas and new scientists don’t get the attention they deserve.
It is especially difficult if the good scientific work is being done on the side that has been politically “demonized” so that good scientists will dismiss the topic out of hand because scientist X has publicly denounced it as pseudoscience. Such was the case with Carl Sagan’s denunciation of the works of Immanuel Velekovski. . . Velekovski’s work became anathema in science, even though a scientist who had read a good portion of his pre-publication draft had found many of his facts and hypotheses compelling, because of Sagan’s very public criticism. . . yet Sagan later admitted he had NOT BOTHERED TO READ THE WORKS HE SO VEHEMETELY CRITICIZED! He stated that it was obvious they were wrong because they challenged the “known facts” that the Solar System was pretty much now as it always has been as has the Earth and there is no room for catastrophism. The scientist who HAD read Velekovski’s work felt compelled enough to write the forward to his first book “Worlds in Collision.” His name? Albert Einstein. Of course he didn’t publish his forward in the national scientific press.
It is quite interesting to note that Velikovski made specific predictions about conditions on Venus in 1950, a time when orthodox Astronomers and cosmologists like Carl Sagan were predicting Venus would be found to have a planet girdling ocean with a high carbon dioxide atmosphere with a surface temperature of only about 40° over that of the Earth’s own temperature, with an atmosphere much like Earth’s and that it would be possible for mankind to mount a manned expedition to Venus and colonize it. Venus was considered by some as a “second Earth” with a habitual temperate zone near the poles. Velikovski, on the other hand, basing his argument on Mythology which holds that Venus is a newly born planet that was once a comet born out of Jupiter, predicted that Venus would be an inhospitable oven of a planet still cooling from the heat of its creation and its atmosphere would be a reducing atmosphere of acids at nearly 90 atmospheres pressure composed of aldehydes and methane, at temperatures hot enough to melt tin and lead. No water would be found anywhere as the heat and pressure would preclude its formation. Guess who was proved right, the orthodox astronomers like Sagan or the “pseudoscientist” Velikovski when the Russian Venera project probes touched down on the Venusian surface and lasted only hours because of the 90 bar atmosphere at 860° F (hot enough to melt tin and lead), composed of acidic, reducing gasses including large percentages of methane and aldehydes and NO WATER)??? So, was Carl Sagan right to criticize and demonize and dismiss out of hand a work he did not even bother to read, thus creating a modern shibboleth that most scientist believe to this day: “Immanuel Velikovski is worthless tripe?”
We are seeing similar demonization in climatology today. Anyone who disagrees with the anthropogenic global warming crowd is labeled a “denier” and ostracized, defunded, and considered somehow “evil” and “sick.” They, too, are being labeled “pseudoscientists.” In case readers don’t recognize it, that’s another logical fallacy called argument ad hominem. In other words, don’t attack the case, attack the messenger.
P.S. no peer review has been able to refute Velikovski’s scholarship on comparative mythology. You may disagree on his conclusions, and I do on a lot, but his facts and research are impeccable.
The Babylonians preserved earlier Sumerian observation records that have been translated in more recent times ~ generally since way after Velikovsky's death.
The 'comet' Velikovsky thought turned into Venus is more likely Inkydoo, Gilgamesh' friend, who ran off to play with a priestess of Ishtar (hence the trip to Venus)
Established scientific dogma should not be overturned lightly or easily.
Gather sufficient evidence and it will go bye-bye. And that’s the way it should be.
This is essentially the same idea that existing social constructions and principles should be given the benefit of the doubt and not thrown under the bus for momentary convenience.
I believe when applied to politics this POV is known as conservatism. Not a belief that change should always be avoided, but rather that you should have a damn good reason before making big changes.