"Courage of their convictions" a sign of weakness?

Question

In daily life, people are often praised for maintaining some particular point of view, for the "courage of their convictions." A change of mind is seen as a sign of weakness. How is this different in science?

Answer 1

"courage of their convictions."  is another way to say faith, which is believe without merit, which is a form of weakness, science requires testable evidence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith

Answer 2

Let's say we have a scientist, who is absolutely convinced he has the explanation for some phenomenon. He has the courage to defend his opinion, and is able to "defeat" challenges as they are thrown at him, convincingly.

Then along comes another scientist, equally convinced he has the correct answer, as they all were. He challenges the first (the current "champion").

He is able to show the champ where he is wrong, and when the champ checks through the reasoning, he sees he himself has been in error all along.

Now, he could continue to "rubbish" the other's work and insist he is correct, or he could concede that he was wrong, and give the opponent his "victory".

In my opinion, this would take more courage than continuing to "beat his own drum" even though he knows he is wrong.

Both scenarios have occurred.

Science is not necessarily a certainty. If it can be demonstrated that some particular point of view is incorrect, the next scenario replaces that one, and must be allowed to become "the answer" until the next challenge.

For scientific progress, this must happen.