Not a comprehensive reply, but: I think many of the examples you’re talking about are arguably cases of coarse awareness. People were coarsely aware of the potential backfire risks earlier on, but (arguably) the reason they didn’t give these risks enough weight was that they didn’t have a more fine-grained awareness of the specific causal pathways. I think such cases count as evidence for the pessimistic induction.
Interesting, that’s helpful to know.
Not a comprehensive reply, but: I think many of the examples you’re talking about are arguably cases of coarse awareness. People were coarsely aware of the potential backfire risks earlier on, but (arguably) the reason they didn’t give these risks enough weight was that they didn’t have a more fine-grained awareness of the specific causal pathways. I think such cases count as evidence for the pessimistic induction.