“Were it not for irrational thinkers like Galileo, we would still be letting ignorant schmucks demand everything orbits us.”
I guess it depends on how you define ‘rational’. I personally think that it is often rational thinking that moves science forward, beyond the irrational. It wasn’t rational to think that the Earth was flat, and that you could fall off the edge, or that by bleeding patients you could rid the body of illness. I agree, however, with the gist of the article, that science moves forward when people think ‘outside the box’. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to get funding for ideas that vary markedly from the established line of thinking.
I agree.
“Outside the box” does not necessarily equal “irrational”.