Scientists Ridiculed for Breakthrough Ideas That Were Later Proven Right
A Quartz article highlights 20 scientists who faced mockery for their theories, which were later proven correct. Ignaz Semmelweis demonstrated in 1847 that handwashing could lower maternal mortality rates but tragically died in an asylum in 1865. Alfred Wegener introduced the concept of continental drift in 1912, which gained acceptance in the 1950s. In the 1980s, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren discovered that Helicobacter pylori caused ulcers, leading to their 2005 Nobel Prize after Marshall conducted self-experiments. Galileo Galilei was tried for advocating heliocentrism in 1633 and endured nine years of house arrest. Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," published in 1859, was initially ridiculed but later confirmed natural selection. Other notable scientists include Ludwig Boltzmann, J Harlen Bretz, Barbara McClintock, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, and Katalin Karikó, who also overcame skepticism before their breakthroughs were acknowledged.
Key facts
- Ignaz Semmelweis's handwashing policy cut maternal deaths at Vienna General Hospital from roughly 18% to under 2% in 1847.
- Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift in 1912 and published 'The Origin of Continents and Oceans' in 1915.
- Barry Marshall drank an H. pylori broth in 1984, developed gastritis, and cured himself with antibiotics; he shared the 2005 Nobel Prize with Robin Warren.
- Galileo Galilei was tried by the Inquisition in 1633 and spent nine years under house arrest; the Catholic Church expressed regret in 1992.
- Barbara McClintock stopped publishing transposon research after a 1951 seminar and received the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar calculated the 1.4-solar-mass limit in 1930; Arthur Eddington dismissed it in 1935, and Chandrasekhar won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics.
- Katalin Karikó was demoted by the University of Pennsylvania in 1995; her 2005 pseudouridine modification with Drew Weissman enabled mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, earning the 2023 Nobel Prize.
- The New York Times mocked Robert Goddard in a January 13, 1920 editorial and issued a correction on July 17, 1969, after Apollo 11 launched.
Entities
Artists
- Ignaz Semmelweis
- Alfred Wegener
- Barry Marshall
- Robin Warren
- Galileo Galilei
- Nicolaus Copernicus
- Charles Darwin
- Samuel Wilberforce
- Thomas Huxley
- Ludwig Boltzmann
- Ernst Mach
- Wilhelm Ostwald
- Albert Einstein
- Jean Perrin
- J Harlen Bretz
- Joseph Pardee
- Barbara McClintock
- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
- Arthur Eddington
- Niels Bohr
- Wolfgang Pauli
- Fred Hoyle
- Willy Fowler
- Margaret Burbidge
- Geoffrey Burbidge
- Stanley Prusiner
- Katalin Karikó
- Drew Weissman
- Charles Townes
- Isidor Rabi
- Polykarp Kusch
- James Gordon
- Herbert Zeiger
- Llewellyn Thomas
- Arthur Schawlow
- Peter Higgs
- Robert Brout
- François Englert
- Anton van Leeuwenhoek
- Robert Hooke
- Louis Pasteur
- Félix Pouchet
- Joseph Lister
- Martin Luther
- Tycho Brahe
- Johannes Kepler
- Isaac Newton
- Robert Goddard
- Marie Tharp
- Bruce Heezen
- Jacques Cousteau
- Ptolemy
- Gregor Mendel
- Pope John Paul II
Institutions
- Vienna General Hospital
- University of Edinburgh
- Physics Letters
- Physical Review Letters
- CERN
- Large Hadron Collider
- Royal Society of London
- University of Pennsylvania
- Pfizer
- BioNTech
- Moderna
- Columbia University
- Clark University
- Smithsonian Institution
- Guggenheim family
- The New York Times
- Lamont Geological Laboratory
- National Geographic Society
- Library of Congress
- Geological Society of Washington
- Geological Society of America
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- University of Chicago
- California Institute of Technology
- Glasgow Royal Infirmary
- Catholic Church
- Roman Inquisition
- Quartz
Locations
- Vienna
- Austria
- Perth
- Australia
- Florence
- Italy
- Oxford
- United Kingdom
- Washington
- D.C.
- United States
- Montana
- New York
- India
- England
- London
- Delft
- Dutch Republic
- Netherlands
- Massachusetts
- Auburn
- Greenland
- Atlantic Ocean
- Seattle
- Washington state
Sources
- Quartz —