> They wouldn't be considered "controversial" in a modern field, people would just rightly be skeptical until the research bore fruit. This is a hypothetical t

> They wouldn't be considered "controversial" in a modern field, people would just rightly be skeptical until the research bore fruit. This is a hypothetical that is obviously impossible to disprove, but I fucking doubt it. Science, including in the hard sciences, is rife with personal animus, envy, and rivalries. Scientists are not dispassionate logic machines who simply maintain a healthy skepticism until the research bears fruit. Many of them will viciously attack your research, you, and the institutions that support you if they feel threatened by your ideas, and they are not above lying and cheating to get their way. As the pithy saying goes, science progresses one funeral at a time. Max Planck--a man who knew a thing or two about advocating controversial ideas--put it slightly more kindly [1]: > A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. . . . An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle