Lawrence was a broken man. He was ridiculed for imagining space-time to be curved. It took the solar eclipse of 1919 to convince the scientifc community, through the correct prediction of the advance of the perihelion of Mercury. The headlines in the New York Times proclaimed the paradigm shift. The use of the notion of social diffusion of the impact of a new scientific paradigm emphasizes its gradual and, in some cases, its incomplete global acceptance.
Some factions never believe.
A theory of the dynamics of social diffusion can be established in terms of the familiarity of individuals with the pertinent frames of explanation. Acceptance of viable new ideas by a group of specialists using their jargon is almost immediate, all participants being totally familiar with their area of specialization. As familiarity with frames of explanation is reduced, i.e. from specialists to a more general audience, the time period for acceptance increases markedly. For technical ideas, the layman never accepts by criticism, but falls back on acceptance by authority. The role of philosophy in modern science has been minimum at best, and is considered irrelevant by most practicing scientists.