🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1in24aINNb2f@im4u.cs.utexas.edu>, turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
|> problem Truzzi describes.  But let's be clear about what such an
|> error would be.  It would be the delay by some decades (or at
|> least some years) of the general acceptance in the relevant field
|> of a significant piece of knowledge because those in the field
|> were too stubborn or too cautious or because the institutions
|> concerned were too inflexible.  
|> 
|> Does anyone want to volunteer examples?  Such errors would be
|> particularly interesting in the hard sciences.  To avoid
|> controversy, it would be best if such proposed errors were ones
|> that are now widely recognized as errors.  (Those who believe
|> that their favorite theory today is an example can take this as
|> an historical exercise of looking for the mistakes of
|> yesteryear.)

A successful example may well depend upon how broadly you want to
draw the borders of the domain of such episodes.  I suppose that
the long-running Lysenko episode in soviet genetics/agriculture
would count as an example despite the fact that the rest of the
(scientifically inclined) world did not participate in that
silliness.  Actually, various areas of soviet "science" may prove
to be a rich area to mine for such examples.  I use the quotes
since the influence of politics and ideology is so obviously
a causal factor in this area.  Such examples do seem to require
a social situation in which the "normal" inclinations of scientists
can be effectively suppressed for long periods of time rather than
a situation in which the scientists themselves are doing the
suppressing.
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