The History of Science as a History of Rejected Papers

Paul Lauterbur, the Nobel-winning discoverer of the principle behind magnetic resonance imaging, once said, "You could write the entire history of science in the last 50 years in terms of papers rejected by Science or Nature."

The quote comes from a short article by Henry Bauer, an HIV skeptic, called Nobel Prizes Illustrate How Research is Done and Evaluated. Bauer lists a number of scientists who, prior to winning their Nobel Prizes, were widely disparaged for their later prize-winning theories. The list includes the aforementioned Lauterbur, as well as the discoverers of the bacterial causation of stomach ulcers, the discoverer of prions, and even Einstein and Planck.

So how are we, the lay public, to make sense of claims such as those involved in HIV skepticism? The short answer is, I believe, it's damned difficult. In this particular case, the number of people in the world able to pronounce decisively on this matter must be very few, and even so there is the matter of trust. For instance, critics of the HIV "denialists" want editors and journals that publish the skeptics blacklisted. Now, how trustworthy is the word of someone who wants critics silenced? (Rhetorical question.) We laymen can only attempt to make sense of the differing opinions in this or any other area. Shutting down critics hinders the flow of ideas, the emergence of truth, and is unworthy of any society which calls itself free.

Off the top of my head, here are some other topics I've come up with in which proponents of the majority view believe that they have/had everything right, and critics should sit down and shut up.

• The lipid hypothesis of heart disease. Proponents of the lipid hypothesis have been in the saddle for well over 30 years, and some of them like its inventor Ancel Keys, wanted critics fired or marginalized, using the same reasoning that the HIV anti-denialists use: the critics are killing people. The lipid hypothesis has lately been shown to be almost certainly wrong.
• Global warming. Critics of AGW are accused of obstruction of the progress necessary to almost literally prevent the world's destruction. 
• Antioxidants. Somewhat less controversial, but for perhaps the past 20 years it has been widely held by biological scientists that dietary antioxidants are critical to good health. New evidence is emerging that maybe they aren't good for you after all.
• Statins. The medical establishment believes that they should be handed out like candy, some even advocating putting them in the water supply. A vocal group of critics says that statins are not only next to useless, but are killing people. (See here.)
• Michael Bailey's theories of homosexuality and transvestism have resulted in harassment, lawsuits, and nearly losing his job.
• Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee: For years this group has asserted that governments, especially the U.S. government, manipulate the gold price to a lower level than it would be in the absence of such manipulation. It seems to me that there is almost no way that a layman can discover the truth behind this, both because of lack of expertise and because definitive evidence is unlikely to be forthcoming.
• Peak oil.
  

  
On any given matter, the establishment will have powerful motives for the maintenance of the status quo, and that includes the scientific establishment. Whenever the partisans of a particular theory say that their critics should be silenced, we ought to be extremely suspicious.