> overwhelmingly rejected.
As they should be. We shouldn't be spending a lot of our very limited and precious funding on counter science.
Some, sure. But if you're not rejecting an overwhelming number of proposals that go against established science, one has to question how established the science really is. How many flat earth researchers should we be funding each year? Or string theorists for that matter?
But you've moved the goalpost, I had responded to this:
> no room in the current model for the curiously ambitious scientists
You said "no room", implying it's not possible. My reply was that actually it's very possible and happens all the time. Is it the common case? No. But in my experience it's quite possible if you have the ability to reasonably articulate a plan. A lot of these "pie in the sky, go against the grain" proposals are also hopefully naive just from a project management and feasibility standpoint. Often times people will get denied funding and feel it's because their idea was just not appreciated, but really it's not the idea but the execution surrounding it that people don't have confidence in.
> How rude. My opinion is informed by my extensive personal experience and echoed by those in the thread.
Please read my reply in the context of your comment; you had not sourced your opinion to yourself; instead you had cited "others have pointed out", so I had wondered who those people were so I could post on their threads. If you had cited your personal experience, I would have taken you at your word.
> Who are you to challenge it?
FWIW, I also have extensive personal experience getting funded for projects which buck traditional norms, so we can kindly put our dicks away. If someone is not getting funded I consider it a persuasive skill issue. Sometimes it's just a luck issue. But lots of people, especially early career researchers, have a good idea but lack the ability to even articulate a clear vision of what their ideas are, and then blame that on others' inability to be persuaded.