In introductions, papers often give a short overview of what's been done before, so early work in a field often gets cited even if it turns out to have been fla

In introductions, papers often give a short overview of what's been done before, so early work in a field often gets cited even if it turns out to have been flawed. (It can't be completely ridiculous, of course, it must have sounded plausible at the time, but even shoddy research often does.)