Even scientists dont always get it right

A classic case is the discovery of the major cause of stomach and duodenal ulcers by two Austrailian scientists in the early 70s. At least one scientist prior to them had seen the bacteria that the Aussies eventually got a Nobel prize for discovering. The fact that the medical community resisted their findings for many years- resulting in plenty of unnecessary operations still being carried out (with the attendant risks)- is down to genuine sceptism and bad logic, as far as I can tell. The bad logic arises when a discovery is written off because of preconceptions of the disbelievers. I had heard that many dismissed the bacterial pictures taken by the two as artefacts- which are contaminants introduced to the slide (this may well be a problem today with zoonotic diseases). Now I dont know everything that happened but it seems to me we make many mistakes like this:
1) because a problem may be caused by multiple factors we may dismiss a factor if that isnt present in our own analysis...missing multiple causes (and even the main cause in the case of the ulcers)
2) we dont try easy cost effective solutions that might prove the case we are presented with...perhaps antibiotic trials way back in the 70s on a small scale would have helped build the case..of course there would be type, combination and dosage issues to work through but antibiotics are cheap and commonly prescribed for more minor problems for longer terms (doxy for acne for example)
Having said this science is still the best method we have for verifying things about the world around us. A randomised double blind controlled study with large numbers of people being the best medical and health test we can perform on any alleged cure. this brings us onto the problem of "anecdotes" in the next post.....