> For too long we've assumed the bodies of accumulated knowledge in the sciences to be fact without dispute
Who is this "we" who has assumed such a thing? Certainly no working scientist I know would agree that a result being published means it is necessarily correct. Nevertheless, some knowledge of the world scientists have accumulated has very strong support, and those who challenge it have invariably turned out to be in the wrong.
The 'we' could be a bunch of people who are no longer even alive. No longer alive in body but alive in spirit through the application of the law. I was listening to a building science podcast the other day.
In it they were talking about how they used to use, and still use, a 100 year old assumption about 'make-up air' in houses which is part of setting up an air conditioning system.
Turns out the original scientific papers were formalized into regulation or ASHRAE standards without double checking whether they were true.
Practically this means every single household in the country has a AC unit which is overpowered by 30% or 50%. For 100 years.
It also meant tens of millions of buildings suffered from dry rot because the systems weren't balanced correctly if I remember right. I'll look it up if anybody's interested.
Looks like it becomes a bigger problem as buildings become more airtight. Something to do with peak dewpoint in makeup air being all wrong, not sure because I'm not a HVAC expert.
Who is this "we" who has assumed such a thing? Certainly no working scientist I know would agree that a result being published means it is necessarily correct. Nevertheless, some knowledge of the world scientists have accumulated has very strong support, and those who challenge it have invariably turned out to be in the wrong.