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Did you actually read the article? It isn't so simple.

They transitioned from lemons to limes without realizing that they had gone from a kind of citrus that protected from scurvy to one that didn't. Their interest in meat was due to expeditions which unambiguously demonstrated that lime juice did not protect against scurvy while polar bear meat did. And no simple categorization would have explained to them why you don't want to use copper in preparing food.

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The only thing shown unambiguously was that "that juice did not prevent scurvy". Taking this to reason inductively that "no citrus juice prevents scurvy" is the real problem. They discarded documented evidence and grasped at other straws instead of stepping back and investigating history.

The problem is that they had no mental frame of reference from which to understand the importance of avoiding heat, light, and copper. Therefore even if they performed experiments and discovered the truth, they would have no theory to tell them that taking the obvious next step was a bad idea.

Witness for example Scott's ability to demonstrate that seal meat prevented scurvy, and his inability to realize that trying to preserve it by boiling it wouldn't work.

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