[andagainagain]

why would that be true? Many things that are true are socially uncomfortable and are still known.

History is chock full of examples of things which others in the field (and society) hated but could not disprove, and then became well known. I can think, off the top of my head, examples in math, human biology, plant biology, psychology, and martial arts, (the last one due to the wonders of the internet). It seems to happen all the time.

[batavian]

Many things that are deemed socially uncomfortable are a part of the same board on which the socially comfortable game is played.

Moreover, the vast majority of examples one can come up in science are not truths, and in fact a core premise of science is each state of scientific knowledge is contingent and not final, i.e. it's not True, but it should be a more faithful description of what is happening than we had before.

[HKH2]

There are many examples in history of people who have risked their reputations or even lives to say certain things. I've no doubt the memory and works of some have been wiped out completely; humans are awfully petty at times.

It's all too easy to dismiss one's critics out of hand, yet if you want a relevant argument you at least have to consider some criticism dispassionately. I'm not sure that we as a society have got better at doing that.