Right All Along: 24 People Who Were Mocked and Later Proven Right
Be careful who you laugh at; all too often that 'crazy person' spouting the idea that multiple gunshots wounds are actually unhealthy turns out to have something of a point. Indeed, the curse of being the prescient sage is that you're destined to be labeled a radical until everyone else has caught up with you.
Down below are a couple dozen forward-thinkers who were laughed at in their time, only to be proven right further down the line.
1.
Ignác Semmelweis First doctor to champion hand washing as a means to prevent spreading infection. Everyone made fun of him.
2.
Johnny Rotten Banned from the BBC for ousting Jimmy Savile as being a horrendous pedophile. Some 500 cases of abuse. Had his own set of keys to a psychiatric hospital where he would frequently abuse vulnerable children.
3.
Henry Freeman, a lifeboatman in Whitby. He tried to get the other lifeboatmen to wear cork lifejackets, but no-one would but him. During a great storm, the lifeboat was launched several times to help struggling vessels and sailors. On their sixth launch, disaster struck and the lifeboat capsized. Only Henry survived thanks to his cork life jacket. They became compulsory for lifeboatmen shortly afternoon
4.
Joseph Lister First proposed that germs caused post-operative infections, and recommended that surgical instruments be sterilized between operations. People thought he was nuts.
6.
Barbara McClintock, she postulated the existence of transposons (certain types of genes) in DNA BEFORE anybody even knew what the actual structure of DNA is like, she was widely mocked by the scientific community at the time. Transposons were later confirmed to exist and she was awarded the Nobel.
7.
The doctor in China, Li Wenliang, who was arrested for trying to stop the spread of Covid from the start.
8.
John Snow in 1854 tried to tell everyone about cholera, and how it was being caused by the water supply, no one believed him until he took illegal action and saved many lives
9.
Greg Lemond. In 2001 he said Lance Armstrong was probably doping. He was threatened he took a huge image hit and his business opportunities suffered. He never let up on lance despite the media campaigns, threats, damage to his reputation and business, and the recrimination of his peers in the cycling community. Until surprise surprise in 2012 it came out that lance Armstrong was doping. Who could have foreseen that? If only someone had told us. Oh wait. Greg Lemond did. A decade ago.
10.
Barbara Lee was the only congresswoman to vote against going to war in Afghanistan after September 11. Not going to say she was right, but at the time I remember even as a kid thinking she was crazy, and heard alot of the derisive talk much more common today, directed at her. (Not a patriot, traitor, blahblah) 20 Years later, the world seems alot less black and white, and her decision seems ferociously rational against a tide of fear and rage.
12.
Stella Liebeck, the lady who got burned with McDonald's hot coffee. The media mocked her and accused her of a frivolous lawsuit but it was an ongoing problem that McDonald's served dangerously hot coffees that had injured many others.The coffee was hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns to her pelvic region and she was hospitalized for 8 days while she had to get skin grafts, and continued medical care for 2 years related to the burns. She originally just wanted her medical bills covered but McDonald's tried giving her an insultingly low amount, so then she was forced to open a lawsuit. The courts rightfully sided with her and forced McDonald's to regulate the temperature on their hot beverages.
13.
Dr Bennet Omalu who found that American football players had chronic traumatic encephalopathy/ brain concussions which were slowly affecting their neurological and psychological functions. He was strongly opposed at first but then proved right. His biographic movie is named ' Concussion'.
14.
Richard Stallman. Warned us back in the 80s that if we allow corporations to rule the internet that nobody will have privacy or freedom on the web, among many other things.
15.
Alexander Fleming, the man who discovered Penicillin, spent almost 10 years trying to convince the medical bodies of his time that it was worth investing time and resources to experiment with it, but was basically told to pound sand despite the respect he had prior to the discovery. Lot of good it did me, I was lucky enough to be born allergic. Happy for the rest of you at least.
16.
Monica Lewinsky. That poor woman was dragged through the mud and seeing everyone reassess what was done to her has been bittersweet. ETA: Bittersweet bc more people seem to understand she was a victim (sweet), but she was really young, and decades of her life were spent being a public punching bag (bitter)
17.
John Rae. Very skilled arctic explorer who unlike most of the rest of Europeans at the time wasn’t above learning from the Inuit. He was largely successful because of his willingness to learn from them and use their clothing and diet and techniques. Anyway, about ten years after the Franklin Expedition was lost John Rae was out looking for clues what happened because the British Admiralty had a standing reward of £10,000 for anyone who had credible information about the expeditions fate. He found some physical remnants of the expedition and had met with Inuit who’d seen some of the last surviving members of the expedition. They related to him how they’d been taken by disease, lack of food, and how some of them finally succumbed to cannibalism. Rae took this information back to England, where society was absolutely outraged how he dared to spin such drivel. Surely no sophisticated gentlemen of the hero’s character that would be in Sir John Franklin’s expedition would act so savagely! John Rae never got the award. Years later someone else did who told of a story that was correct also to some degree, but less than Rae had been. In modern times bone fragments have been found with telltale cut marks, thereby proving John Rae and the Inuit right.
18.
Barry Marshall. Proved that stomach ulcers were a bacterial infection (and not stress) by ingesting (edit) with Helicobacter pylori and then curing himself with an antibiotic.
20.
Alfred Wegener hypothesed plate tectonics in the 1920’s, but this wasn’t an accepted notion until the 50’s. He was a meteorologist, and copped a lot of flak from the geological community at the time.
21.
Sherry Rowland. Discovered the effect of CFCs on ozone depletetion and received an immense level of blow back from industry. Not only that, but invited talks and collabs were rescinded within the scientific community. Poor guy was ostracized. 20 years later after his (and Molina’s) discovery, he’s finally recognized with a Nobel prize.
22.
My classmate in nursing school. He made a big fuss about a “coronavirus” just noticed in China. He asked about if clinicals or classes would be changed because of it. We thought he was absolutely paranoid and insane. We laughed.
23.
Chris Crocker. We all know the Leave Brittney Alone video. We all quoted it at the same and made fun of Chris. But they turned out to be completely correct. Britney was being pushed too hard by the media, and the aggressive fans and invasive paparazzi were (in part) to blame for her break down. We know now that she was controlled by her family for years, and we really shouldnt have mocked someone trying to draw attention to it. I think part of the mockery came because the breakdown is "funny", but also because society did - and still does - think that celebrities deserve whatever happens to them, so the paparazzi and the fans aren't responsible for how their actions hurt celebrities.
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