> incentive to fake the earth's evident age Not arguing the specifics here, but a deliberate effort to deceive is not a prerequisite for a widely held theory t

> incentive to fake the earth's evident age Not arguing the specifics here, but a deliberate effort to deceive is not a prerequisite for a widely held theory to be false. It is likely that all of the proponents of luminiferous aether believed they were dutifully following the evidence but they still arrived at the wrong conclusion. All evidence is theory-laden. Scientific study is still a sociological system despite our best efforts (yes, I've read Kuhn like everybody else)