[alien_at_work]

>Bethe's only reason to dismiss a new particle as an explanation was Occam's razor.

Thank you for pointing out the other fault of Occam's razor: both sides of most arguments tend to assume the razor is on their side. This aspect was addressed in the second article I linked.

[lmm]

It's possible to make a mistake in the application of any principle, particularly when the mistake suggests you've made an important discovery. I think there would have been a clear consensus among third-party physicists that the razor favoured Bethe in that case.