challenging consensus Quotes

I don't believe anything unless I understand it inside out. And even if I understand something, it is not uncommon that I disagree with accepted view (even if it's a Nobel laureate).

It doesn't always turn out. It's not always a happy ending when sometimes you say things that you think, and it goes against the grain of the larger group.

What I question is the extent to which any of us truly knows what the facts really are. I mistrust every ideal cherished in western democratic civilization. The words that make others smile and nod in agreement cause me to recoil.

The role of the comedian is to say 'Wait a minute' when a consensus starts to form.

When you think about being contrarian, you have to think about - how is it that smart people will disagree with me, disagree with me ...from a position of intelligence, and there is something that I know that they don't know, that will actually in fact play out to be true.

The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

When there's ever a breakthrough, a true breakthrough, you can go back and find a time period when the consensus was 'well, that's nonsense!' so what that means is that a true creative researcher has to have confidence in nonsense.

It is easy to be independent when all behind you agree with you, but the difficulty comes when nine hundred and ninety-nine of your friends think you are wrong.

The hardest thing over the years has been having the courage to go against the dominant wisdom of the time, to have a view that is at variance with the present consensus and bet that view.