[muhdeeb]

Well put!

You make a very good point. The historical trajectory of a field's development is an extremely haphazard presentation of the ideas. It belongs in a separate curriculum, and I'm grateful that the history of science exists as field for that purpose. It's nice to study the history after one has understood the material; that way we can see what ideas prospered and faltered, and what might be ready for reinterrogation.

Why should we study antiquated and easily falsifiable models before we get to our modern and less-easily falsifiable models?

Drawing on common intro chemistry: the plum-pudding model of the atom is cute in historical context, but a real distraction from what our best understanding of what atoms are, for which we have much better evidence than the helium-nucleus scattering experiment that first suggested a dense, charged nucleus in gold atoms. We really only need the old plum pudding as a counter example, yet fail to explain the experiment in enough detail to justify including it. What probably began as a fastidious attempt to provide full context to a landmark experiment has at this point completely degenerated into historical trivia about the structure of British desserts, and yet remains prominent in educational material.

Math is a bit better off in this respect.