It's a shame that Fleming misremembered his process of discovery and created a myth of accidental discovery.

I like the Root-Bernstein narrative more. That in the monotonous execution of routine experiments for something unrelated an unusual observation 'forced' them to discover penicillins antibacterial properties.

Not an accidental discovery by good fortune in a serendipitous sense. An accidental discovery of a brute force exhaustive search. The narrative of we spent months meticulously examining hundreds of samples is less romantic, but is one that supports the importance of funding scientific inquiry.

We won't make progress by hoping people leave culture plates out on window sills. We make progress when we fund meticulous exhaustive efforts of discovery.