Throughout history there have been some incredible discoveries thanks to scientists, doctors and artists who, in their time, were considered crazy.
The ancient Greeks knew the world was round all along but it took until the fourteenth century for regular dummies to believe it (thanks Magellan). Newton was a complete nut but he changed the way we understand the universe.
“They were crazy until they were right” stories should keep us on our toes when it comes to weirdos with bold ideas and that’s probably a good thing.
Redditor u/MeargleSchmeargle wanted to get the conversation goin’ when they asked the people of Reddit:
“Who was crazy until they were right all along?”
And the responses will take you on an interesting stroll through history, pop culture, and even some wild documentary-worthy personal stories that you’ve got to read.
Here are the top 24 stories on the thread:
1.
“Hemingway, before he took his life he became extremely paranoid the FBI was following him. His wife and people around him just thought he was mentally ill and grew deeply concerned. Hemingway went as far as getting electrotherapy at a psychiatric hospital to try and help with the perceived delusions. Turns out the FBI had been following and bugging him for years according to declassified files.” –WhoIsTurdFerguson
2.
“Ludwig Boltzmann. His equations and formulas explained the physical properties of matter, but as it went against the then accepted Laws of Physics, he was ridiculed and ignored for years while fighting for atom theory to be accepted. He took his own life just 3 years before Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus of an atom, proving Boltzmann’s theory.” –cpsutcliffe
3.
“Harry Markopolos spent ten years trying to convince everyone (investors, journalists, regulatory agencies, etc.) that Bernie Madoff was a fraud, based on forensic accounting. Madoff was one of the most respected names on Wall Street and despite the overwhelming evidence, no one was willing to entertain the thought he might be running a Ponzi scheme. Harry’s book, No One Would Listen is a pretty great account of financial detective work and just the abject frustration of being absolutely certain you’re right but no one believes you.” –Inri137
4.
“In the days of land lines…My phone was tapped. I could hear a strange hollow sound and I knew someone was listening. I had had a bad accident and was home for almost a year and involved in a lawsuit. I told my attorney about it. He told me the insurance company wouldn’t bother. I mentioned it to my roommate. She told me I was crazy. I began to notice a van parked on my street. It was there for several days. I thought I was under surveillance. My attorney and my roommate said I was crazy. A person came to my door asking questions about the neighborhood. They claimed to be from a real estate company. They didn’t go to other houses. I thought I was being watched. My attorney and my roommate said I was crazy. Several weeks later, my roommate’s boyfriend was arrested for stealing physical and intellectual property from IBM. It was the beginning of the Tech Era and he stole millions in hardware and software and ideas. We were being watched to see if we were involved. The phone was tapped. We were under surveillance. We were taped. I wasn’t crazy after all.” –Addhalfcupofsugar
5.
“That dude who suggested that it might be a good idea to wash your hands before performing surgery” –Roland_T_Flakfeizer
“Semmelweis supposedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum by his colleagues. He died 14 days later after being beaten by the guards, from a gangrenous wound on his right hand which might have been caused by the beating. Semmelweis’s practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory.” –dannycolaco14
6.
“The “dingo ate my baby!” lady. Got made fun of constantly, most notably in Seinfeld and I believe went to jail because nobody believed her. Turns out a dingo ate her baby. She is still made fun of.” –Threash78
7.
“For a very long time the medical community thought that stomach ulcers were caused by stress.
A doctor in Australia called Barry Marshall claimed they were wrong and that they were caused by an excess of certain bacteria, and the cure was simple antibiotics. The medical community ridiculed him and nearly ended his career. He eventually decided the only way to prove he was right was to infect himself, develop the ulcers and cure himself.
In curing himself he was proved right and won the nobel prize for his efforts, and now stomach ulcers are very easily treatable (they previously affected 1 in 10 people).” –graeuk
8.
“Courtney Love was warning everyone about Harvey Weinstein back in the mid-90s, but everyone just wrote her off.
“If you’re a woman in this industry and Weinstein invites you to one of his ‘parties’, don’t go.” –Kitty-Zombie
9.
“J Harlan Bretz-
He was a geologist that in the 1920s came up with a theory about why the Dry Falls and surrounding scablands of Eastern Washington state were so sharp and abrupt, instead of smooth as should be with the general understanding of erosion. Especially since the falls have no real river to speak of to create erosion.His theory was that a giant flood, created by an even more massive lake, ripped through the region millions of years ago, reshaping the landscape in a matter of days. He was laughed at and discredited in the geology community for almost 50 years. Until someone discovered evidence in the 1950s of an ancient and massive lake that started just north of Montana that stretched all the way to southern Utah.
The lake was believed to have been created by glacial dams (ice walls) during the last ice age. It would fill up over thousands of years and then hit a point where a glacial dam broke and the lake water would fire out the break like a water cannon, drain the lake, and reshape an entire region over several days as the water flowed toward the ocean. This happened several times.
Since the flood that carved the Dry Falls likely started from the Lake Missoula area in modern day Montana, it was named the “The Great Missoula Flood”. Bretz was given an award in 1979 for his contribution to geology when he was 96 years old. He joked “All my enemies are dead, so I have no one to gloat over.” –Arrow_to_the_knee1
10.
“The fan that predicted the show’s ‘How I met your mother’ message and was shamed, only to be completely right in the end.” –JiN88reddit