Matt Kaplan discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent at the Economist. 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 National Geographic, New Scientist, Nature, and the New York Times. He is the author of The Science of Monsters and Science of the Magical, and co-author of David Attenborough’s First Life: A Journey Through Time. He completed a thesis in Paleontology at Berkeley, and one in science journalism at Imperial College, London. In 2014 he was awarded a Knight Fellowship to study at MIT and Harvard. Born in California, he lives in England. His new book is I Told You So! Scientists who were Ridiculed, Exiled and Imprisoned for Being Right.
- The few doctors who worked out that handwashing was essential for preventing the spread of disease were attacked by their peers https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/ignaz-semmelweis-doctor-prescribed-hand-washing
- George Washington disobeyed direct orders from the Continental Congress and inoculated his troops against smallpox during the Revolutionary War https://historyofvaccines.org/blog/washingtons-war-against-smallpox-revolutionary-inoculation-campaign/
- Louis Pasteur was a vicious fellow who engaged in academic fraud. https://cms.viroliegy.com/2022/02/25/louis-pasteurs-unethical-rabies-fraud/
- The mild mannered French physician Pierre Alexandre Louis worked out that the common practice of blood-letting was terrible for patients. https://www.grunge.com/812824/the-radical-history-of-bloodletting-explained/
- The researcher who invented the mechanism for wielding mRNA to create the Covid-19 vaccine was demoted, fired and threatened with deportation by the US Department of State for not pursuing useful research. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/scientists-egos-key-barrier-to-progress-covid-vaccine-pioneer-katalin-kariko
- Experiments exploring novel ideas are getting rarer as the effort needed to get research done steadily goes up https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20180338
Better Known 