It can be very challenging to question and/or go against the status quo for scientists for many reasons. In some ways and in some circumstances it does make sense though that the scientific community doesnt accept a new idea right away. Scientists make mistakes all the time, so in order to demonstrate that a scientist has found something real their work needs to be replicated by another scientist. If other scientists cannot replicate their work, then they may have made a mistake or cheated their results or something. In the humanities sciences there is a replicability crisis in that scientists are having a lot of trouble replicating others work to the point where they believe that at least 50% or more of the scientific literature is wrong. This is due to a much wider issue regarding how universities and scientific journals create an environment that almost forces professors to do shotty work. But that's a whole other story.

Overall I think it's a pretty challenging situation. You dont want every single new idea to be accepted at first glance before the work is replicated but at the same time you want the community to remain open to new ideas that may question the status quo. It's sort of a balancing act.

Great post. Its definitely food for thought. It really got me thinking :)

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