Eli5: Why is there such a negative response to controversial topics in science, wasn’t the existence of “atoms” extremely controversial back in the days as well?

Question

Shouldn’t people research and discuss topics in a calm and rational manner instead of some sort of “you vs me” type of mentality?

In: 1

Answer 1

Topics *are* discussed in a calm and rational manner between the vast majority of actual researchers. The worst I’ve seen is people at a conference complaining that a speaker didn’t show convincing enough data/proper methodology to make particularly big claims. Do you have reason to believe otherwise?