“To achieve anything really worthwhile in research it is necessary to go against the opinions of one's fellows. To do so successfully, not merely becoming a crackpot, requires fine judgement, especially on long-term issues that cannot be settled quickly. …To hold popular opinion is cheap, costing nothing in reputation, whereas to accept that there is evidence pointing oppositely… is to risk scientific tar and feathers. Yet not to take the risk is to make certain that, if something new is really there, you won't be the one to find it.”

Home Is Where the Wind Blows: Chapters from a Cosmologist's Life (1994) p. 235.

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Fred Hoyle19

British astronomer 1915–2001

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