It happens all the time. Remember when trans fats were good? Remember when we were 100% sure dietary cholesterol was bad?
There tends to be a ~20 year lag for the discovery such catastrophic failures. By the time we catch on, the people who built their careers on them have already enjoyed decades under the assumption of success and/or are long gone.
It seems the mad scientist trope is based on a very real morbid scientific temptation that many people seem to have, that handwaves away ethics with specious arguments, and fails to realize that permanent, unrecoverable mistakes that can cost people their lives are infinitely worse than abstaining from things you have doubts about.
There tends to be a ~20 year lag for the discovery such catastrophic failures. By the time we catch on, the people who built their careers on them have already enjoyed decades under the assumption of success and/or are long gone.
It seems the mad scientist trope is based on a very real morbid scientific temptation that many people seem to have, that handwaves away ethics with specious arguments, and fails to realize that permanent, unrecoverable mistakes that can cost people their lives are infinitely worse than abstaining from things you have doubts about.