No, I didn't mean that sarcastically. Their theories go like this, at least in my reading. 1 - Something about citrus fruits cures scurvy. Correct. 2 - Someth

No, I didn't mean that sarcastically. Their theories go like this, at least in my reading. 1 - Something about citrus fruits cures scurvy. Correct. 2 - Something about living on a diet of preserved foods causes scurvy. This is even more correct, since now we're getting at the cause. But I agree we're seeing some interesting cognitive biases here. Once their original theory is disproved, they focus on explaining the latest results, and seem to forget that they still have to explain why citrus fruit ever seemed to cure scurvy. (Or perhaps the story is more complex than we suppose, and they had some other explanation). What's certain is that they don't test their ideas with enough experimentation. There seems to be a bias towards formulating theories, and trusting in the expert's judgment, without any empirical verification.