Depends what you mean by "development", as the article does not describe developments on treating scurvy, but rather somehow random actions based on wrong assum

Depends what you mean by "development", as the article does not describe developments on treating scurvy, but rather somehow random actions based on wrong assumptions (ex: limes are the same as lemons; acidity is all that matters). And even if in this case the initial solution was correct, it was still observing a correlation, as they had no clue why lemons do the job. My conclusion based on the article is that just experimenting is not enough, you also need to develop and test a complex understanding of the system. We probably don't cherish enough as a society, that some of us (as in: trained researchers, etc.) have a mindset that expects both replication and understanding, even if being humans we don't always reach this ideal.