Some scientists must face going against the grain with their ideas.

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~Renae Soppe

I have found the feedback on a news story I wrote last week called "Should we introduce elephants into Australia?" compelling. With an abundance of comments and 'likes' on Facebook, the story sparked lots of interest and conversation (which is exactly what the author of the paper, David Bowman from the University of Tasmania in Hobart, had intended).

The majority of the comments were that it is a "stupid idea" and "the researcher was stupid to even suggest it". But Bowman's suggestions were intentionally radical because he knew they would create conversation, which in turn would hopefully birth lots of other ideas for how Australia can combat its bushfire and feral animal problems.

It made me consider how many scientists have faced ridicule about their ideas. Is there such a thing as a bad idea in science? Or do any ideas - whether good or bad - help to expand and contribute to the knowledge of science?

Last year, the Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to Israeli materials engineer Daniel Shechtman from the National Bureau of Standards in Washington for his work in quasicrystals, suggesting that some crystals had 10-fold symmetry much greater than the four or six-fold symmetry usually expected of crystals. When he first put forward this theory in 1982, he was met with immense ridicule to the extent that he was kicked out of his research group for suggesting such a thing. I bet he is waving his $1.4 million Nobel Prize check in their faces now.

But remember when everyone thought that the world was flat and that it was absurd to suggest that it was anything otherwise? It took years before it was recognised that the world was indeed round and you wouldn't fall off the edge if you sailed over it. But before people started sailing as far as they could to prove it or not, someone had to stand out of the crowd to suggest it in the first place.

Maybe great science is born from those scientists who refuse to go with the grain of the scientific community. Albert Einstein died thinking that including the cosmological constant in his field equations for general relativity in 1916, was the "biggest blunder" of this career. After being proved wrong, and that the universe was expanding and not static, he dropped the concept of the constant all together. But research into dark matter suggests that Einstein was right all along - there is a mysterious entity in space that, among other things, his cosmological constant can only explain.

Why do we have to be so quick to criticise people's ideas? I understand that scientific literature must be analysed critically in order to create a solid correct foundation for scientific knowledge. But I wonder if being too critical straight off the bat is a kind of professional scientific bullying. Might the fear of being ridiculed restrict scientists from revealing their thoughts and findings?