It's not a failure in the usual sense we think about it, no. You were still "technically wrong" in whatever hypothesis you had that was disproven. But the end result is different because theoretically everyone involved cares more about the answer being found, not necessarily that they are the one to do it.
Hell, in cases where whatever you did was later proven incorrect it's usually that whatever you did was the most correct answer for the information we had at the time. Then new information is discovered and often someone else builds off what you did to get this new answer.
And hell it seems like those 3 things all come back to raging sexual insecurity. Their misogyny always seems to come back to them not getting the amount of sex they feel they deserve. A ton of their racism reads like bad interracial cuckold porn. Their transphobia always sounds like they're terrified that they're gonna finally get a woman home only to find out she's got a 12-inch trouser snake and is into pegging or some other psychotic shit.
It feels so weird to say. Like why does it always seem to come back to these chucklefucks not getting enough sloppy toppy and deciding to do a fascism about it?