Groupthink in science isn't a problem; it's a myth

"It's often said that the great arc of science always bends toward the truth, but sometimes it takes an awfully long time to get there. Around 500 years ago, there was really only one scientific phenomenon that was, without controversy, extremely well-understood: the motion of the celestial objects in the sky. The Sun rose in the east and set in the west with a regular, 24 hour period."

"Its path in the sky rose higher and the days grew longer until the summer solstice, while its path was the lowest and shortest on the winter solstice: part of the annual cycle. The motions of the stars also exhibited a similar 24 hour period, as though the heavenly canopy rotated throughout the night. The Moon migrated night-to-night relative to the other objects by about 12° as it changed its phases,"

"Many who study science often ask themselves, "How was this possible?" How did this geocentric picture of the Universe go largely unchallenged for so long: for over 1000 years? There's a common, but untrue, narrative that certain sets of scientific dogmas, like the Earth being stationary and the center of the Universe, could not be challenged. But the truth of why a theory like geocentrism could hold sway for so long is far more complex. The reason the geocentric model beat back all challengers for so long wasn't because of the problem of groupthink, but rather because the evidence fit it so well:"

Observed daily and annual celestial motions produced a coherent, predictive picture of the heavens: regular sunrise and sunset, seasonal solar path changes, stellar diurnal rotation, lunar nightly migration, and planetary wandering explained by geocentric rules. Geocentric models provided close agreement with available observations and predictive algorithms, which made them practically dominant for centuries. Heliocentric ideas existed long before being widely adopted, but early alternatives failed to match the observational fit and predictive power of geocentrism. Scientific stagnation often results from the strong explanatory success of an established theory rather than purely from social conformity.

Read at Big Think