Something similar happened with Carl Sagan’s wife, Lyn Margulis, whose perseverance with endosymbiosis should see her ranked alongside Darwin as a scientist who deduced where we came from.
By the way, I don't think that's even close to the same thing. Every biologist and biochemist knows about Margulis, because of her work.
Looks like they were only married for around 8 years (1957 to 1965), so they divorced before he was really famous. Maybe that's why it's not more widely known?
Sadly, in her later years she became a bit too persistent with it, trying to apply it in cases where it clearly wasn't happening. The notorious example is this 2009 paper, now retracted: https://www.pnas.org/content/106/47/19901
https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-fraud-who-worked-with-einstein-5...
It's huge. For the first 2 billion years of the history of Earth, life was unicellular. The only type of cell in existence was prokaryote. The atmosphere contained no oxygen.
Then there was 1 billion years of history in which Earth's atmosphere changed. At the end of that billion years, two main differences were apparent. Firstly, the atmosphere was comprised of 21% oxygen. Secondly, life on Earth was comprised of two different types of cells - prokaryotes, and eukaryotes.
Eukaryotic cells are 100 times larger than prokaryotes. Unlike prokaryotes, they form multi-cellular organisms. Everything you see around you with your eyes, and every living thing you ever watched David Attenborough talk about on TV are comprised of Eukaryotic cells.
Endosymbiosis is the explanation of how Eukaryotic life came to exist.
If endosymbiosis were popularly understood, society might better understand and acknowledge the connectedness of life on Earth. Instead of humans treating the planet as their own kingdom and garbage dump, they might develop a more harmonious, respectful relationship with the natural world. That might lead to greater prospects for sustainability of the planet and of humans.