The Courage to Be Right w/ Matt Kaplan

About this episode

Matt Kaplan discusses the struggles of scientists who faced ridicule for their revolutionary ideas.

Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent at the Economist and author of the new book I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right in which he shares the stories of researchers—from Darwin to Pasteur to modern Nobel Prize winners—who had to fight for their revolutionary ideas to be accepted. "But Paul…” you might say. "This sounds very interesting, but how does it fit into the conversations here on Reasonably Happy?” Good question! It’s because I like contrarians and truth-seekers. I worry about prevailing power structures or narratives that restrict innovation, progress, free markets, and personal liberty, whether those obstacles be bureaucracy, fascism, religion, or political correctness. And perhaps by pondering these historical examples, we’ll be less likely to repeat past mistakes. Over the last two decades, Matt has written about everything from paleontology and parasites to virology and viticulture. In addition to the Economist, his writing has appeared in National Geographic, Nature, and the New York Times. He completed a thesis in Paleontology at Berkeley, and one in science journalism at Imperial College, London. In 2014 he was…

People in this episode

Host: Paul Ollinger

Guest: Matt Kaplan

Topics covered

• science
• innovation
• contrarian thinking
• historical examples
• truth-seeking

Keywords

• science correspondent
• I Told You So!
• contrarians
• historical examples
• innovation
• Nobel Prize
• paleontology

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Economist, National Geographic, Nature, New York Times, MIT, Harvard

Books & works: I Told You So!

Places: California, England

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