Science -- the social structure thereof -- can often act just like any other social structure. Can have a high reactance to change. What allowed plate tectonics to come to be accepted? It did not happen instanteously. What allowed surgeries to become hygienic? It surely wasn't abstract un-emotional science, Dr. Lister was mocked to near insanity!
When did quantum mechanics become accepted? When the older generation of mighty scientists retired (and they were truly mighty -- smart and genius, too).
Social structures can inherit old theories and wrap them in layers of instutionality of all sorts -- people's careers and institutions tied to a given way of looking at the world. They -- as history shows again, and again and again -- become very jealous of a certain way of looking at the world. Not only reactive -- but resistive -- lossey.
"Social structures can inherit old theories and wrap them in layers of instutionality of all sorts -- people's careers and institutions tied to a given way of looking at the world. They -- as history shows again, and again and again -- become very jealous of a certain way of looking at the world. Not only reactive -- but resistive -- lossey." That is true to a certain extent, however, the occurrence of resistance to change in the past does not mean it is happening now. It is simply not an argument.