Respectable people, with a safe and profitable career, let themselves be enchanted by the sirens of success, then falling into the trap of deception. For example, Andrew Wakefield and Jacques Benveniste. Both "normal" exponents of science then fell into the dustbin of charlatanism.
There are others and worse: scientists who falsified data, manipulated conclusions, deceived colleagues. Scientific fraud is a very serious issue in the field of research is like doping in sport and it is said that even scientists like Newton or Pasteur allowed themselves to be "adjusted" to confirm their theories. Like E. Racher or William Summerlin.
The latter was a scientist dealing with dermatology who announced that he had managed to transplant animal tissue between non-compatible beings without causing rejection. To prove his (exceptional) discovery he presented some white mice that had black spots on the skin, those spots were the transplanted tissues and the mouse managed to keep them intact and survive without any side effects and rejection. A discovery of this kind was received with surprise and incredulity: transplanting a tissue or an organ without provoking any rejection in an incompatible individual opened incredible breaths in medicine and above all contradicted a tide of studies and research now considered scientific certainties.
The days passed and the stains faded and when someone had the idea of passing a cotton swab soaked in alcohol, he discovered that in addition to fading the stains disappeared, they were erased from alcohol. In practice, the black areas that represented the "transplanted tissue" had been designed by Summerlin with a marker. It sounds like a joke but it is not.
A ridiculous fraud, unmasked and admitted by the same scientist when cornered that he justified his state of health according to him very precarious and exhausted from the nervous point of view. Since that day, "painting the mouse" is an expression used in the United States to define scientific fraud.
But fortunately these are borderline cases. Most of the studies are carried out by people who commit their lives honestly and at the service of progress.
But if a scientific study is well done and accurate, does it put an end to an argument?
No.