Reading Comprehension

Until recently, insects and their allies were seen
as being of economic importance merely as an annoyance
or menace to man and his flocks and herds, or injurious
to his crops. But there has since sprung into prominence
(5) the knowledge that in a more insidious manner they may
be the enemy of mankind: that they may be among the most
important of the disseminators of disease. This
knowledge has revolutionized our methods of control of
certain diseases, and has become an important weapon in
(10) the fight for the conservation of health.
Great movements and discoveries do not arise
suddenly; centuries ago the possibility that insects
were concerned with disease was suggested, and from time
to time there have been keen suggestions and hypotheses
(15) along this line. One of the earliest is by the Italian
physician, Mercurialis (1530-1607), during a period when
Europe was being ravaged by the plague: "There can be no
doubt that flies feed on the internal secretions of the
diseased and dying, then, flying away, they deposit
(20) their excretions on the food in neighboring dwellings,
and persons who eat of it are thus infected."
More worthy of consideration is the approval given
to Mercurialis's view by the German Jesuit Athanasius
Kircher in 1658, who attributed the production of
(25) disease to bacteria and formulated, albeit vaguely, a
theory of the animate nature of contagion. But it took
two and a half centuries of scientific advancement to
accumulate the facts to prove his hypothesis.
In 1848, Dr. Josiah Nott published an article on
(30) the cause of yellow fever, in which he presented
"reasons for supposing its specific cause to exist in
some form of insect life." Curiously, the bearing of
Nott's work on present-day ideas of the insect
transmission of disease has been overrated: written
(35) before the discoveries of Louis Pasteur and the
recognition of micro-organisms as factors in disease
propagation, his article refutes the theory of
"malarial" origin of "all the fevers of hot climates,"
but he uses the term "insect" too broadly for our
(40) present purposes. Almost contemporaneously, the French
physician Louis Daniel Beauperthuy argued that yellow
fever and others were transmitted by mosquitoes. He not
only discussed the role of mosquitoes in the
transmission of disease, but also taught that houseflies
(45) scatter pathogenic organisms.


The author of the passage would agree with which of the following statements about the scientists mentioned?
A. They might have contributed more given access to present-day ideas and data
B. They fell prey to mistakes and stereotypes that seem obvious in hindsight
C. Their work, even when inaccurate, has proven crucial to modern science
D. They would have made quicker progress had they been more attentive to each other
E. They could not have brought about our present knowledge any faster than they did

I shall go with B.

GMAT community,
I am not able to use spolier on RC section. If I try, it cancels all my writingand throws me back to the forum.

IMO OPTION C

Let me if this is correct. I'll let you know my reasoning

I will go with C .

I believe the optios boils down to A and C. Both the statements are supported by the passage. For Option A, we have :

But it took
two and a half centuries of scientific advancement to
accumulate the facts to prove his hypothesis.

and for Option C, we have :

. This
knowledge has revolutionized our methods of control of
certain diseases, and has become an important weapon in
(10) the fight for the conservation of health.
Great movements and discoveries do not arise
suddenly; centuries ago the possibility that insects
were concerned with disease was suggested, and from time
to time there have been keen suggestions and hypotheses
(15) along this line.

.

Nevertheless, i believe that Option C would outweigh option A..
Please share the OA..

Regarding C, at no point does the passage say that the earlier findings are INACCURATE; they simply do not reach the modern level of understanding.