Review: I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right by Matt Kaplan

I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right by Matt Kaplan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an ALC and ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

If you enjoy non-fiction of the medical or scientific nature give this one a read.  It is easy to follow and doesn't contain a ton of terminology a layperson like myself is unable to follow.  Kaplan, a scientist in his own right, who has turned to journalism writes about those who chose to challenge the status quo in their fields of expertise and where shunned for it only to be proven correct later on.  In some cases those brave souls were give credit for their findings, in others they never saw their ideas and findings do the good in their field.

Kaplans spends a good deal of time focusing on bias that is still present today in archeology, medicine, science, and other industry.  If you don't come from the "right" background and look like everyone else you can't possibly know what you are talking about.  Many women, and people of color (men and women), those of different religions backgrounds, or from different countries, etc, are still not respected despite how much education or expertise they possess in a field and are ridiculed and held back from making breakthroughs because it may bruise the ego of someone higher up the chain or challenge the status quo.  Kaplan points out the science and medicine have been held back for years because scientists and doctors don't like to be told that they are wrong and are slow to adapt to new methods that may produce better results.

I found this fascinating and was shocked to see that the hostility and bias that was present back in the days of Galileo is still rampant today across the world.  The scientific community hasn't learned it's lesson or grown from the many amazing discoveries that have been made from the diversity of minds and diversity of thought that have been brought forth since that time.  While marginally better the fact that any sort of racism, sexism, or -ism in any form is still occurring is unacceptable.  I think of all of the diseases that could have been cured or breakthroughs in medicine if that we could have had if humans weren't so stubborn, selfish and mean to one another.  While humanity has come along way, there is still much work to be done.

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