this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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Wasn't this more about taking away the names from a bunch of people who in hindsight were terrible people? I remember something awhile back about people getting upset because some groups had decided that if you had a shred of negativity in your past, you weren't allowed to discover and name things. I believe they were trying to change a bunch of names "to not honor the original person".
That didn't feel like science so much as politics and I get why some would be against that.
Science is a highly political process.
The real actual science, just ask petroleum, cigarettes, sugar, mosanto glyphosate, lysenkoism, grant allocation, DDT, lead gasoline and paint, amiante, IQ, operation paperclip, nuclear testing, SSRIs, opioid crisis, covid 19, gain-of-functionr research, psychology replication crisis, trans fats, usda food pyramid, even cold fusion and the latest entry in this list PFOA/PFAS.
Scientific truths and regulatory actions often "become allowed" only when they are no longer economically threatening to the incumbents.
Some of the examples are not shown to work. They are however still good examples since going down a dead end can be a good example. Deciding where to explore is deeply political.
Edit: you could delineate them clearer to make sure nobody thinks of you as a conspiracy nutjob, but you do you.
For e.g. cold fusion there was to the best of my knowledge not a single clear cut case where it could be replicated without doubt or at all. Errors just add up.
Here is an excellent retelling of the cold fusion saga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn92eWhGG14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbfJFPVApu8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWlBZT7L1qM
Basically, as soon as the scientist had one anomalous reading, the political and academic machine got into overdrive, huge money started getting thrown around and the scientists got under huge amount of pressure and paranoia.