About what? Yes, they were opposed in their time, but their findings eventually became the accepted facts. When I said "walk backwards", I meant exactly that - we haven't been washing our hands for a 170 years and had to say "actually, scientific evidence has shown that we were completely wrong, the people who considered Semmelweiz a loonie were actually right."

Science has a definite tendency to go forwards, not backwards. Because scientists like to replicate results, and tend to reject things that don't properly explain the observed facts. Unlike statements of faith from, well, actual faiths, as opposed to "scientism".