This isn't a particularly surprising story considering the history of science. To give an example of how this sort of thing played out historically, Marshall Nirenberg was basically persona non grata (or at least dutifully ignored) at many scientific conferences prior to his postdoc's discovery of the codon for phenylalanine. At the time, he was working at the NIH, which was considered very low prestige by many contemporary scientists. Somewhat fortuitously, Francis Crick heard a lecture by Nirenberg at a conference in 1961 and considered it good enough to bring to the attention of the other key players of the day, and Nirenberg was elevated from obscurity to stardom. For whatever reason, Nirenberg's postdoc never really achieved stardom, despite being the individual who actually made the discovery.
Semmelweis was literally thrown into an insane asylum and died not long after, following a beating by the guards. Einstein worked in a patent office, unable to get a university job like he wanted until after his theory was proven correct. It took years to get the evidence he needed.
Nirenberg had it easy, compared to Ignaz Semmelweis, Barbara McClintock, Dan Shechter and likely many others I am unaware of - who were shunned for many years.
The scientific method is awesome. The scientific community, not as much - although I admit I have no idea how a system with better false positive / false negative ROC will look.
For more information:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/854683...