The history of suppression of scientific genius

Excerpts from Eysenck's book Genius (1995)

"The list is truly endless ..." "Nothing has changed"
(except that genius is now totally invisible)

[One of the cases which Eysenck did not mention here was that of Ludwig Boltzmann, whose outstanding discovery of statistical thermodynamics was ridiculed by university professors for ten years till he took his life.] [page 147:] Less often remarked, but possibly even more insidious, is the resistance by scientists to scientific discovery [.....] [page 148:] Planck's experience with other leading physicists was no different. .... 'I found no interest, let alone approval, even among the very physicists who were clearly connected with the topic. Kirchoff expressly disapproved. I did not succeed in reaching Clausius. He did not answer my letters, and I did not find him at home when I tried to see him in person in Bonn. I carried on a correspondence with Carl Neumann, of Leipzig, but it remained totally fruitless' (Planck, 1949, p.18). ' .... 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.' .... even after the publication of De Revolutionibus most astronomers retained their belief in the central position of the Earth; even Brahe (Thoren, 1990) whose observations were accurate enough to enable Kepler (Caspar, 1959) to determine that the Mars orbit around the sun was elliptical, not circular, could not bring himself to accept the heliocentric view. Thomas Young proposed a wave theory of light on the basis of good experimental evidence, but because of the prestige of Newton, who of course favoured a corpuscular view, no-one accepted Young's theory (Gillespie, 1960). .... Similarly, William Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood was poorly received, in spite of his prestigious position as the King's physician, and harmed his career (Keele, 1965). Pasteur too was hounded because his discovery of the biological character of the fermentation process was found unacceptable. Liebig and many others defended the chemical theory of these processes long after the evidence in favour of Pasteur was conclusive (Dubois, 1950). Equally his micro-organism theory of disease caused endless strife and criticism. Lister's theory of antisepsis (Fisher, 1977) was also long argued over, and considered absurd; so were .... .... Priestley (Gibbs, 1977) retained his views of phlogiston as the active principle in burning, and together with many others opposed the modern theories of Lavoisier, with considerable violence. Alexander Maconochie's very successful elaboration and application of what would now be called 'Skinnerian principle' to the reclamation of convicted criminals in Australia, led to his dismissal (Barry, 1958). Another good example is Wegener's continental drift theory, which was given short shrift when he first announced it (Wegener, 1915), but which is now universally accepted. .... most geologists rejected it out of hand. Many of them refused to take it seriously and simply ignored it. .... The list is truly endless, and is continued in Barker's (1961) article. Here I will rather cite in a more detailed manner a particularly interesting case, that of Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (Slaughter, 1950). .... An almost ten-fold reduction in mortality might have been expected to provoke praise, interest and imitation. Nothing of the kind. .... Professor Klein, his boss, driven by jealousy, ignorance and vanity, put all sorts of obstacles in Semmelweis's way, underhandedly prevented his promotion, and finally drove him from Vienna. Another victim of mindless medical orthodoxy was the great Andreas Vesalius, who pioneered modern anatomy 450 years ago. .... Embittered by the harsh condemnation of his work, Vesalius gave up scientific work, burnt his notes, .... Vesalius was made to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem .... he was shipwrecked and perished. .... it would be quite wrong to imagine that this is the sort of thing that happened in ancient, far-off days, and that nowadays scientists behave in a different manner. Nothing has changed, and I have elsewhere described the fates of modern Lochinvars who fought against orthodoxy and were made to suffer mercilessly (Eysenck, 1990a). .... It is odd that books on genius seldom if ever mention this terrible battle that originality so often has when confronting orthodoxy. From HJ Eysenck, Genius (Cambridge University Press, 1995) pp. 147-152.