It seems like a particular combination of colours, say a particular red and green, may be a comfortable, obvious, familiar combination right now, in a specific culture - but 100 years ago may have been shocking and outrageous. And, who knows, in 100 hundred years may again be 'less comfortable'.
Goethe, Munsell, Itten, Albers, Kandinsky may have spent a great deal of time putting coloured squares next to each other, but none of them ever conducted anything like an objective scientific study on the 'aesthetic quality' of a palette. Goethe's theory was based heavily on the work of Aristotle. Munsell's views on aesthetics seemed laughably conservative at the time, let alone now. Neither Albers or Kandinsky, ever put foward a 'theory' for evaluating harmonious colours. Albers said that each colour 'goes' equally well with any other colour. Itten & Kandinsky were obsessed by the occult 'meanings' of colours. Certainly they were genius colourists.. but scientists?