In this episode, we got the story of Alfred Wegener, a man who had stunning insights into how the Earth is continually reshaped through continental drift. However, very few of his fellow scientists trusted his ideas on this matter. In fact, they even created an entire conference specifically to discredit this idea and Wegener ended up dying a laughing stock in his field ...
This version of history has been oversold.
It is true that Wegener didn't manage to convince a majority. It's also true about the conference. However:
* He did in fact manage to make converts, and his ideas got into geology textbooks as a minority opinion.
* Europeans gave him a much more considerate hearing than Americans. When we hear about how badly he was treated, this is an American-centric view.
* His
field was actually meteorology. His textbook on the subject became a classic translated into many languages. The fact that some people thought his drift idea was wonky didn't prevent him from being internationally recognized as the great authority on other things.
* A Chair was created especially for him at a European university (I forget which one, I could look it up) so that he could basically be Professor Of His Own Ideas.
* He died relatively young (in his early fifties, IIRC) because he died of over-exertion doing field research funded with $1.5 million in today's money. Ironically, he might have lived to see himself vindicated if only people had had less faith in him.
* Some of the things he said were demonstrably wrong.
With the benefit of hindsight, maybe his ideas should have been treated with greater respect. But it is wrong to represent him as being an outcast and a pariah; he didn't convince everyone, or even a majority, but he did quite nicely in terms of his academic career. "Died a laughing stock" is an exaggeration.