I Told You So!
Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right
-
- Pre-Order
-
- Expected Feb 24, 2026
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
An energetic and impassioned work of popular science about scientists who have had to fight for their revolutionary ideas to be accepted—from Darwin to Pasteur to modern day Nobel Prize winners.
For two decades, Matt Kaplan has covered science for the Economist. He’s seen breakthroughs often occur in spite of, rather than because of, the behavior of the research community, and how support can be withheld for those who don’t conform or have the right connections. In this passionately argued and entertaining book, Kaplan narrates the history of the 19th century Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who realized that Childbed fever—a devastating infection that only struck women who had recently given birth—was spread by doctors not washing their hands. Semmelweis was met with overwhelming hostility by those offended at the notion that doctors were at fault, and is a prime example of how the scientific community often fights new ideas, even when the facts are staring them in the face.
In entertaining prose, Kaplan reveals scientific cases past and present to make his case. Some are familiar, like Galileo being threatened with torture and Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó being fired when on the brink of discovering how to wield mRNA–a finding that proved pivotal for the creation of the Covid-19 vaccine. Others less so, like researchers silenced for raising safety concerns about new drugs, and biologists ridiculed for revealing major flaws in the way rodent research is conducted. Kaplan shows how the scientific community can work faster and better by making reasonably small changes to the forces that shape it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Science, which in an ideal world would be immune to prejudices, egos, jealousies, and politics, has fallen victim to these forces for hundreds of years, according to this enlightening history from journalist Kaplan (The Science of Monsters). Upstart researchers are often denigrated by the entrenched scientific community, he explains, recounting Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis's discovery in the 1840s that doctors washing their hands largely eliminated cases of puerperal or childbed fever, a fatal bacterial infection that commonly affected women after childbirth. Despite years of convincing research, Semmelweis's results were dismissed by the medical community, many of whom were unwilling to accept that they had been the direct cause of so many women's deaths. Kaplan also relays modern examples, such as the story of biochemist Katalin Karikó, whose research into mRNA was continually rejected and underfunded, but eventually became the basis for the Covid-19 vaccine. Kaplan proposes practical solutions for removing biases, such as implementing a lottery system to allocate research funding, but at the end of the day, he astutely notes, scientists must remember that "we are all here for the sake of humanity." This is a timely and important call for change.
