Well no. They were not ridiculed in the main. Copernicus was taken as seriously as a heart attack by religious scholars and myriads of amateur scientists, mathematicians and philosophers. His reputation as a mathematician was such that even the Pope read his works in admiration. His calculations of planetary relative distances and orbits seemed to add order to the Universe. Likewise Einstein. A poor mathematician but a great thinker, he built upon Lorenzo’s equation. While there was some doubting by some famous scientists, most of whom were important politically, but relatively inconsequential, there was a great deal of excitement also.Experiments began immediately to prove him right or wrong. The result was very clever science in many disciplines and a huge advancement in astronomy and physics.

These amplified weatherman at CRU,trying to control our lives by weather scare are very similar to the crack pot you link to. apparently he can’t get anything right.