TIME was when all scientists were outsiders. Self-funded or backed by a rich benefactor, they pursued their often wild ideas in home-built labs with no one to answer to but themselves. From Nicolaus Copernicus to Charles Darwin, they were so successful that it鈥檚 hard to imagine what modern science would be like without them.
Their isolated, largely unaccountable ways now seem the antithesis of modern science, with consensus and peer review at its very heart. Yet the 鈥渙utsider鈥� tradition persists. Think of Alfred Wegener, the father of plate tectonics and, more controversially, of Gaia theorist James Lovelock. Both pursued their theories in the face of strong opposition from their peers.
Such mavericks can be crucial to progress (see Lone Voices), but are they a dying breed? Beyond young disciplines such as neurobiology, where the territory is largely uncharted, or esoteric areas like quantum theory, where it鈥檚 hard to prove anything, the consensual nature of science can make it hard for lone voices to thrive.
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This may be inevitable. Peer review is inherently conservative, and increasingly only proposals that fit the research framework get funding. The sheer number of ideas in circulation means we need tough, sometimes crude ways of sorting geniuses from crackpots.
The principle that new ideas should be verified and reinforced by an intellectual community is one of the pillars of scientific endeavour, but it comes at a cost. We shouldn鈥檛 allow it to freeze out individuals who are courageous, brilliant or foolhardy enough to go it alone.