A new study published by an economist reports that scientists who criticize something that later turns out to be incorrect later experience the same reduction in citations as the scientists who postulated the incorrect theory in the first place. It could be that the scientist’s line of inquiry into the research subject (in this particular case study, Polywater) leads down a dead end of inquiry once they’ve proven it wrong, which means future researchers have no reason to cite either side when publishing new findings.
The results are disturbing anyway, because the real effect could be that scientists are less likely to criticize something they know or suspect is wrong in fear of harming their careers:
Once polywater was considered a failure, not only were those who had written in its favor punished, but those who had written against it were punished just as strongly! If this is a typical outcome, we can conclude that academic incentives are to just ignore contrarian claims that you do not believe will become mainstream. Try to refute a contrarian claim, and even if you succeed you will be treated just like its defenders.
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