Science is the study of whether a study can be configured to produce a result intended within the constraints of the scientific method.
Too often that is true. Major discoveries have been deferred for decades because the original researcher has already rejected the result because "it didn't sound right" to him/her, probably because it conflicted with current prevailing theories.
Take analytical chemistry, for instance. A chemist might analyse the amount of bromate in seawater, find the result ten times too high, and conclude that he's got the maths wrong and added a zero somewhere. Most times that's right, but if there was ever a major bromate spill from a chemical plant 20 miles down the coast, the chemist would be none the wiser.
Science is a continual struggle against human preconceptions and dogma, and it's the one weapon we have against these instincts.
