Unrelated to the climate change stuff I think you need to differentiate "the process" and "the models" (which is the result of the process). Epicycles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle) was a good predictive model used for a while and developed as a part of science process. Yet, I think we all agree that Copernicus was right challenging them and he did it in accordance with the science process.