As far as Bode’s Law goes, it is easily demonstrated that any sequence of seven numbers can be fit to an integer rule like Bode’s if you allow the amount of tolerance necessary to make Bode’s “rule” work. Tricks like Bode’s law have absolutely no theoretical basis, nor any predictive power, as demonstrated by the discovery of Neptune.
I was not banished to the couch, but I never fessed up to what I paid for it either.
I am not sure which observations you are claiming should be thrown. There was some controversy about one anomalous observation of Uranus (no puerile humor please), and for the book cited, at Sheehan’s urging a French graduate student checked the actual pen and ink records in the archives, and apparently the anomalous observation was a transcription error owing to poor penmanship in the original. The effect is amplified for modern scholars by the character of 18th Century French calligraphy.
In order to nail down the orbit of the perturbing body, the astronomers needed to determine seven parameters, the six orbital elements of the perturber and its mass. By assuming that the orbital inclination was zero (in the ecliptic) and the semimajor axis (orbital radius) conformed to Bode’s law, the number of parameters was reduced to five, greatly reducing the computational effort. Unfortunately, since Bode’s law gave the wrong orbital radius, the resulting eccentricity was greatly exaggerated. Causing the Americans to shrug. The real advantage that Le Verrier had was that he sent his prediction to the Berlin Observatory, and they had the only accurate and detailed charts of the patch of sky where Neptune was, so it was quickly uncovered. It was more a matter of luck. The Celestial Police had been organized to track down the missing planets, and the Berlin observatory had been assigned the patch where Neptune showed up. The charts had been prepared for just such a search. Had Neptune been elsewhere, or Berlin assigned a different patch, it would have been a different story.
I’m not claiming they should be thrown. A professional astronomer said that the observations were an outlier and should be regarded as erroneous. Sorry, that’s all I remember. If memory serves, he claimed that the possibility of an undiscovered large planet out there was a psychological one rather than astronomical. Anyway, thanks! Smart move not fessin’ up, too.