[dekhn]

Yes, it's taken too far. Multiple times in RNA biology people have made legitimate discoveries and were required to implement heroic methods to make their case. The first two I think of are Tom Cech whose grad student demonstrated that RNA can be an enzyme with extremely reliable evidence but they had to put in a few years of work to actually get the community to agree. Similarly, Harry Noller had very strong evidence the heart of the ribosome was an RNA machine and it took 40 years and a crystal structure before the community finally accepted it. A similar case happened with DNA with the Avery experiment which was as good a proof as you'll ever get in biology, but it wasn't until Hershey Chase that the general community overcame the skepticism that DNA could be the molecule of heredity.