For a scientist, that was a serious, almost an unforgivable lapse and Tom Lawson felt very angry with himself. He had let his preconceived ideas affect his powers of observation.

— Arthur C. Clarke, A Fall of Moondust (1961)

Clarke, obviously, understood the scientific method. This is getting rarer and rarer nowadays, where science is increasingly becoming ersatz-religious dogma instead of the search for the truth.