The Weak Go Extinct, the Strong Will Prosper. Does “Natural” or “Native” Mean Anything?: The Contrarians, Part 1

​Western science has a tradition of the heroic contrarian who is proved right: Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin come to mind. In his “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” (1962), Thomas Kuhn explored how and why these radical shifts occur. Another more recent “tradition” is the contrarian-science book that is more about political advocacy and book sales than it is about exploring scientific discrepancies. In the past 20 years, contrarians published scores of books aimed at mainstream medicine (most recently against vaccines), and climate science. As Carl Sagan once said, yes, “they” laughed at Columbus and the Wright Brothers, but “they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” In the case of climate science, contrarians are even pushing the idea that increased CO2 will be an unmitigated good thing.
Now contrarians are taking on the idea of “invasive species” and ecological restoration.

Read More