Florida Orange,
I didn't want to elaborate on my statement about popular hypotheses being false not because I was being evasive, but because I had to join my trick-or-treating kids.
Anyway, the most prominent one from the medial literature was the lidocaine-after-myocardial infarction fiasco. People with MIs (heart attacks) often have arrhythmias. Lidocaine treats arrhythmias. At some point someone had the bright idea that everyone should be put on lidocaine routinely after an MI. 20 years later, someone suggested that it should be studied in a randomized, placebo controlled study. They were roundly criticized for being unethical (withholding the therapy that everybody knew was beneficial in the name of science). Of course, it turned out that the lidocaine was increasing the mortality from MIs. To the tune of 2500 excess deaths in the USA per year. Over the 20+ years that it was the standard of care, it resulted in around 55,000 excess deaths, even though EVERYONE thought it was the right thing to do.
Electronic fetal monitoring during labor was also accepted widely as proper medical care without any adequate prospective studies. When it was finally studied, it turned out to have no effect on babies, but only increased the c-section rate.
Relativity? Widely mocked and derided.
The sun as the center of the solar system? Widely mocked and derided.
The Big Bang? Widely mocked and derided.
The expanding universe? Widely mocked and derided.
Quantum Electrodynamics? Widely mocked and derided (by Einstein, no less! Remember, "God doesn't play dice with the universe!")
Essentially no scientific journalists understand the difference between prospective data and retrospective data. That's why we get pronouncements about how diet soda causes obesity. Frankly, most scientists are less than clear on the subject. I know, because I have to explain this all the time to scientists. Bottom line: prospective data can show causality. Retrospective data cannot. They can only tell you that tw things go together, but not which is causing which, or whether either is causing the other.
6.5 billion people affecting the Earth's temperature? Sure it's possible. It's also possible that they're affecting the Earth's gravitational field or magnetic field. Possible? Sure. Likely? Nuh-uh. But, any scientist would say "Show me the data." That's not what happens now with global warming. If you dare to question the orthodixy, everyone gets shrill and resorts to ad homineim attacks, which is the ultimate reason why I strongly doubt the theory. It's not science. It's religion. People stay pretty calm about scientific disputes. They get bent out of shape about religion.
So here's a little experiment you can do. Make up a little sign that says "I'm skeptical about anthropogenic global warming via carbon dioxide" Stand on a street corner with it, and see how calmly people express their disagreement with you. Now do the same with a sign that says "I believe that RNA is the original genetic material, not DNA." Think there will be a difference? I do.