The sun revolves around the earth.
Animal species never change.
Black people are inferior to white people.
The government can’t provide health insurance to old folks.
Humans can’t fly to the moon.
Telephones are only for talking and listening.
Some of these assumptions had the force of science behind them, others just the force of habit, but all of them seem ridiculous in retrospect. All of them collapsed only because someone had the courage to step outside the consoling, persuading flow of tradition and ask fundamental questions about why things are the way they are, and how they might be instead. The Atlantic has always aspired to challenge its readers, and its times, by giving voice to some of the most provocative thinkers of their eras. Brave Thinking, from Henry David Thoreau’s blunt naturalism to Martin Luther King’s calls for justice, can be unsettling. But it drives society forward. Now, in our first annual Brave Thinkers issue, we have identified a small group of men and women who have risked their careers, reputations, fortunes, and, in some cases, even lives to advance ideas that upend an established order. Why 27? Because after months of research, tabulation, and debate about hundreds of candidates, that’s how many we could agree on. Some of them may prove to be wrong, and others wrong-headed. But all of them embody the kind of courage that stirs the spirit and inspires us to think for ourselves.
Click here to view all of The Atlantic’s Brave Thinkers, or browse the list below.
Thorkil Sonne
CEO and Founder of Specialisterne
Ben Bernanke
Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Morgan Tsvangirai
Prime Minister of Zimbabwe
Camille Parmesan
Professor, University of Texas at Austin
Shai Agassi
Founder of Better Place
