memes

There are lots of independent theoreticians who have done independent work, then brought it out to a scientific community and it's sparked a ton of interest.

And I do mean "independent theoretician" as in a respectful euphemism to "mad bastards", although I prefer the latter. You could also use "a touch too inspired".

Okay well this guy was an actual academic, but the fox breeder came to mind first. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Belyayev_(zoologist)

Then three was the woman who mapped the entire sea floor by fucking drawing it painstakingly herself from like sonar scan results. She's essentially who discovered good proof of tectonic plates. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Tharp

Tharp's discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge caused a paradigm shift in earth science that led to the acceptance of the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift.

Okay well yeah she was an academic as well but those are just two massive names I can think of rn. And loads of us on Lemmy are actually academic, technically.

But anyway, basically the argument in the comic could've been used against those people, and definitely was against the plate tectonic lady.

Hell, the guy who figured out surgeons were killing patients but the morgue-full just because they weren't washing their hands tried desperately convincing people to wash their hands and doctors just kept mocking him like "haha, as if it was our faults the patients died, right, yeah, tiny little bits of corpses on our hands, yea, haha, good one, Semmelweiss".

Dude became rather aggravated that he'd figured it out and no-one listened. Ended up in an asulym and died of sepsis, the very thing he fought against so hard.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/12/375663920/the-doctor-who-championed-hand-washing-and-saved-women-s-lives

I feel that guy. Can share his frustration.