> there's plenty of mainstream, accepted science that's plain, flat out, provably wrong. Yet, it is against good taste (read: job security, people's feelings, etc.) to point this out.
I highly doubt that.
There are a lot of people that think they've proving the mainstream wrong. But more often than not, it's cranks using bad non-repeated tests. These bad tests are propped up, ironically, because of people's feelings and job security more than a built up body of evidence.
They also almost always have to ignore the mainstream body of evidence and just say it's wrong and bad because of a conspiracy.
For example, plenty of creationists believe they have irrefutable evidence that evolution is provably wrong. It's usually a few cherry picked or poorly interpreted results or sometimes just flat out lying. And often they simply flat out lie about the existing body of evidence that support evolution.
Another example is the antivaxx movement. Wakefield and RFK both built careers that made them a lot of money talking about how the mainstream was wrong. Even when the industry adopted some of the recommendations (abandoning Thimerosal), they simply ignored the fact that further data didn't support their claims.