Really?

According to Bacon, we must challenge Aristotle, and certainly not take his word to be truth without a thorough personal introspective look on the subject. It seems to me that Aristotle's arguments seem very straightforward to us: i.e. if a body is heavier, it falls more quickly through a liquid substance. I'm sure there is something to be learned from the past, but to be very broad and skeptical: is there really something to be learned from past scientific inquiries which seem common sensical to us or have been proven many times? Or in the case of those that have been overturned, such as a stationary earth as was discussed by Cohen, is it worth pursuing a subject that is so readily dismissed?