He Saved Mothers With Handwashing And Died In An Asylum — Ignaz Semmelweis

Semmelweis saw something no one else could see: mothers died less often when doctors washed their hands. He had the numbers, he had the results. What he lacked was the word "germ," because Pasteur and Lister had not yet given science the language to name the invisible.

And that is what unsettles us. They did not reject him for being wrong; they rejected him for being right too soon, within a system that demanded authority from the source of a claim rather than looking at the evidence before its eyes. He was correct and incomprehensible at the very same time.

If someone arrived tomorrow with data that works but no theory to explain it, would you believe the results, or wait for science to grant them permission to be right?