Just finished Dava Sobel's The Planets and found one more good example of the battle between the Sons of the Ether and the Technocracy - the Martian Canal Man himself. Sure, it seems obvious: he popularizes the idea of a living Mars and takes steps to prove it, only to have 'science' undercut him every step of the way.
More telling is his battle for Pluto: with his Flagstaff observatory finished he finds he can't get serious scientists to work there because of the disdain heaped upon his Martian theories. So he dedicates his time and effort to proving the existence of 'Planet X'. Just as we knew Neptune had to be there because of the effect it was having on Uranus, we knew there was something else out there that was acting on them. Another uncharted planet, filled with wonder! Using math and the diligent effort of Clyde Tombaugh, Lowell found it (well, he was dead at the time, but it was where he said it would be), and low, he was redeemed!
Except that Pluto wasn't as big as they thought. Smaller. No, smaller than that. OK, smaller still. And it couldn't have enough mass to account for a change to the Neptune and Uranus' orbits. Oh, wait, we'd calculated Neptune's mass incorrectly - there isn't any need for an outside force. And by the way, it's not really a planet.
Chip, chip, chip goes the vendetta of the Technocracy, slowly eliminating the legacy of Percival Lowell in the minds of humanity, lest we start thinking that the solar system might be a more exciting place... if we only viewed it through the Ether!
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