Comment by applfanboysbgon

> You're trying to shift the goalposts rather than concede the point. We weren't speaking of cliquish behavior or resistance to new ideas which are indeed (unfortunately) common enough even in the scientific world. Rather the point under dispute was individuals experiencing markedly adverse emotional reactions to the point of harm in direct response to results that challenge their understanding of how things work.

I wasn't shifting goalposts; I think we had a fundamentally different reading of this thread from the beginning. I was not considering the examples of individuals coming to harm in the same way you did. I took them as a point of evidence that scientists (the community, not individuals) can behave in a reactionary manner against findings that undermine their beliefs. I didn't necessarily think an actual example of self-harm was necessary to justify the plausibility of scientists committing suicide under sufficient scientific duress, if the fictional grievance against their worldview were sufficiently large. I believed it's simply enough to establish that in the real world, scientists are in fact frequently not "thrilled" at new discoveries at all, to establish plausibility. Given how the scientific community has reacted to new ideas in the past, it does sound plausible to me that a minority of scientists might commit suicide if their entire education, career, and life's work were upended by sabotaged "discoveries" they couldn't make any sense of, certainly more plausible than pure fascination as you would expect from the naive platonic ideal of a scientist.

> On a more personal note, your view of the sciences seems to me to be myopic and overly cynical.

My view isn't particular to the sciences. I am very, very cynical towards humanity as a whole. I simply think scientists, as a bunch, are no different.

> No worthwhile scientist

That's the catch, isn't it? How many would you estimate are worthwhile? There are undeniably great scientists who wouldn't get caught up on learning more about the world, even if their preconceptions about it were wrong, but my cynical reading of humanity is that the majority of people in most professions that can't be reduced to rote work are actually not worthwhile members of their profession, in terms of both skill and personal ethics.