{"id":9553,"date":"2026-03-27T08:42:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=9553"},"modified":"2026-03-27T08:42:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:42:30","slug":"top-i-told-you-so-moments-in-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=9553","title":{"rendered":"Top ‘I told you so’ moments in science"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Below, Matt Kaplan shares five key insights from his new book,\u00a0I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Matt is a science correspondent at\u00a0The Economist<\/em>, where he has written about everything from paleontology and parasites to virology and viticulture over the course of two decades. His writing has also appeared in\u00a0National Geographic<\/em>,\u00a0New Scientist<\/em>,\u00a0Nature<\/em>, and the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the big idea?<\/h2>\n

Science often suppresses bold, unconventional, or threatening ideas due to ego, hierarchy, competition, sexism, and fraud. This culture harms progress. To truly serve society, science needs structural and cultural reform that protects integrity and encourages intellectual risk-taking.<\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this Book Bite\u2014read by Matt himself\u2014in the Next Big Idea App<\/a>, or\u00a0buy the book<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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1. Stupidly silenced<\/h2>\n

In the middle of the pandemic, I was interviewing researchers who were trying to defeat COVID-19 or help patients in hospitals. Something that blew me away during this period was how often I would hear really impressive ideas that I thought were worth reporting on, but then the scientist would say, \u201cOh no, no, no. You can\u2019t say that.\u201d And when I asked why, these are some of the responses I got:<\/p>\n