Someone want to debate error in science? I actually know a few things about it.
Remember cold fusion? Two physicists, Pons and Fleischman, announced they had achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature. This is very big deal. Like Nobel Prize big deal. The major obstacle to using fusion as energy source is the tremendous heat and pressure needed for hydrogen to fuse. That and keeping reaction under control so you don't get a hydrogen bomb. A whole new industry could be born. But numerous other physicists tried and no one could replicate their results. They kept saying the others were doing it wrong. Then closer analysis showed errors in their data. There never was any fusion. They could have admitted the error and been object lesson on theorizing ahead of data, but to the end of their day they insisted they were right and everyone else wrong. They were't silenced. They were discredited.
Remember Martian fossils? A rock known to have originated on Mars showed what were thought to be microscopic fossils. Again, huge deal. At press conference, all the photographers were jockeying for position to get a picture of the rock. Talk about being a rock star! I don't know a single scientist or lay person interested in science who didn't want this to be true. Unfortunately, the universe doesn't give a flying fuck what we want. The anomalies in the rock were from chemical reactions. Interesting in themselves, but not fossils. To this day we don't know if there ever was life on Mars. In this case the team admitted their error. They probably get ribbing about it but their lives went on.
Sometimes scientists get a bug up their ass. I respect Linus Pauling as a biologist and peace activist but megadoses of Vitamin C do not prevent or cure the common cold. Again, we wish it were true but the universe doesn't care what we want.
Some are less benign. Like those who insisted people of African descent were less intelligent than those of European descent and any effort to improve education was a waste.
Like Mullis, genuine scientist who went off the rails saying HIV does not cause AIDS, HIV is harmless, people got AIDS from recreational drugs. And insisted on his position no matter how much evidence there was that HIV does cause AIDS. He ended up a pariah in the scientific community. Not in a concentration camp. Not silenced.
Andrew Wakefeld is British ex doctor who said childhood vaccines caused autism. But review of his study showed that not only was it flawed, very small sample, limited follow-up, it was fraudulent. He faked data. He was stripped of medical license. Since then he has traveled the world feted by antivaxxers like brain worm. Far from being silenced, he doesn't shut up.
Of course scientists make mistakes. In fact there isn't a scientist dead or alive who has not make mistakes. But whether error denied, error acknowledged, malice or fraud, in each case it was scientists who uncovered the error/fraud. Scientists with knowledge of how experiments are set up and data analyzed. Not random dude on Facebook. Not someone claiming at third hand someone died of Covid vaccine and therefore it is bad because Joe Rogan said so.