Science needs contrarians, and contrarians need support - Harvard Gazette

"Picture a scientist with a provocative hypothesis - something that defies conventional wisdom or verges on the outlandish. Supporting the pursuit of that big, bold claim is the goal of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science's new Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence (ECEE) program. Designed for social scientists who want to explore highly controversial topics, the program helps tenure-track faculty generate the rigorous evidence necessary to assess their ideas."

""Science depends upon contrarians," said Gary King, Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor and IQSS director. "We need researchers trying to propose claims that most others think are wacky or wrong or offensive or ridiculous, because sometimes rigorous evidence will convince us all that they're right." The ECEE initiative - named for a quote by Carl Sagan, the late Harvard faculty member and science communicator - specifically helps scientists secure the funding and data resources necessary to gather"

The Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence (ECEE) program at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science provides targeted support for tenure-track social scientists pursuing controversial or unconventional hypotheses. The program supplies funding, data resources, and quantitative-methods assistance to enable the large-scale, rigorous evidence collection needed to evaluate extraordinary claims. The initiative aims to ensure provocative ideas that could shift a field are properly tested rather than ignored for political, social, or financial reasons. ECEE aligns with IQSS's mission to build infrastructure for large-scale social science research and to foster contrarian inquiry that may yield important discoveries.

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