# The Doctor Everyone Mocked — Until His 'Crazy' Theory Wiped Out a Killer Disease. Matt Kaplan - #547

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/into-the-impossible-with-brian-keating-324783/the-doctor-everyone-mocked-until-his-crazy-theory-wiped-out-a-killer-disease-matt-kaplan-547
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/into-the-impossible-with-brian-keating-324783/the-doctor-everyone-mocked-until-his-crazy-theory-wiped-out-a-killer-disease-matt-kaplan-547.md
Podcast: [Into the Impossible With Brian Keating](https://stenobird.com/podcast/into-the-impossible-with-brian-keating-324783)
Published: 2026-03-29T11:21:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/BBPI5528308257.mp3?updated=1774784292
Audio file: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/BBPI5528308257.mp3?updated=1774784292
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Duration seconds: 2940

## Resource

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Matt Kaplan is a science journalist at The Economist and a trained paleontologist. His new book I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right is a candid investigation into how science actually works — and why the engine of discovery is badly in need of a tuneup. In this conversation, we discuss why the pandemic exposed science's dirty secrets to the public, how Ignaz Semmelweis discovered handwashing saved lives and was thrown in an asylum for it, why Katalin Karikó survived where others didn't, the replication crisis and how funding models are making it worse, whether older scientists should control research dollars, why Galileo was never actually tortured, and what journalists and scientists must do differently before public trust collapses entirely. Matt Kaplan also recently discussed science communication and dysfunction on other outlets — in this conversation, we go deeper on the replication crisis, the Semmelweis story, and why the funding model is quietly corrupting the scientific process. 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes each week 🎧 Ad-free episodes on Patreon: patreon.com/drbriankeating INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE — where Nobel Prize winners, physicists, and bold thinkers explore the biggest questions in science. Key Takeaways 00:00 Why the pandemic was science's most damaging moment of exposure 03:30 The scientific-industrial press complex — and who's really to blame 06:50 How science journalism fails the public 85% of the time 10:00 Ignaz Semmelweis: the man who proved handwashing saves lives and was destroyed for it 20:10 Why infection rates dropped from 21% to zero — and nobody listened 24:30 What Katalin Karikó had that Semmelweis didn't: she…

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