- Harvard's IQSS launched ECEE to fund controversial social science research.
- Confidentiality lets faculty take risks on contrarian projects without disclosure.
- A trigger warnings study with 800+ students showed safe spaces have mixed effects.
Picture a scientist with a hypothesis so provocative that most colleagues dismiss it as wacky, wrong, or even offensive.
Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science just launched a program specifically to support exactly those researchers.
The Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence (ECEE) initiative helps tenure-track social scientists gather the rigorous data needed to test controversial ideas that might otherwise never get explored, as reported in the Harvard Gazette.
The program provides everything from statistical expertise to shared workspace–and critically, total confidentiality for faculty willing to take intellectual risks.
Key figure
800+
students interviewed for the trigger warnings and safe spaces study
Why Science Depends on the Outliers
"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."
Science depends upon contrarians.
Gary King, director of IQSS and Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor.
The program takes its name from a quote by Carl Sagan, the late Harvard faculty member who popularized science communication.
Its premise is simple: bold hypotheses require extraordinary amounts of evidence to prove or disprove, but gathering that evidence often demands resources that controversial projects struggle to secure.
Steven Worthington, director of data science for IQSS, explained what qualifies as extraordinary: "An idea unusual enough that, if true, it could shift the focus of a field."
Such ideas might remain unexplored for political, social, or financial reasons - exactly what ECEE aims to prevent.
From Lightning Rods to Evidence
The program's first public success involves a topic that became a cultural flashpoint: trigger warnings and safe spaces in college classrooms.
Professor of Psychology Richard McNally and his team used ECEE support to conduct detailed interviews with more than 800 students.
Their study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, found that trigger warnings had no overall impact on students' perceptions.
Safe space designations increased feelings of safety and willingness to discuss controversial subjects, but it also made students view professors as "left-wing authoritarians."
The paper recently received an editor's choice honor from the American Psychological Association.
"That was an interesting project because it's a lightning-rod topic at the moment," Worthington said. "What the authors were able to do was to turn a highly politicized topic into an evidence-based analysis."
Without ECEE's backing, McNally noted, "we could have never pulled it off at this scale."
The program gave his team the statistical power to detect subtle differences in massive datasets, the kind of rigorous design that makes even skeptics take the findings seriously.
What is statistical power?
Statistical power is a study's ability to detect a real effect if one exists. A high-powered study uses a large enough sample and precise enough methods that even small, genuine differences show up in the data – rather than being lost in the noise. Low-powered studies risk missing real effects or producing unreliable results.
Confidentiality as a Feature
ECEE currently supports eight research projects, though the institute won't reveal which faculty members are participating. That confidentiality is deliberate.
King said the combination of extraordinary research support and total privacy "helps faculty to take risks on highly contrarian projects." Researchers can go public if they choose, but the program never requires them to acknowledge its help.
With increasing political pressure from a government accused of dismantling US higher education, these kinds of programs may be an important safety net for social science departments at Harvard and other universities.
Some of the most important scientific advances came from researchers willing to challenge consensus, but only when they had the resources to test their controversial ideas with enough rigor to change minds.
Fact Check: Claim-by-Claim Verification Verified
The recap accurately represents the Harvard Gazette source article in all key claims, quotes, and details about the ECEE program and McNally study.
Commentary
- McNally link in article (psycnet.apa.org) is valid but PubMed provides cleaner access; study sample is 738 students, article rounds to "more than 800" which is minor.
- Political pressure link to Guardian is opinionated but not central to scientific claims and accurately reflects cited article's context.
Sources used for verification
Academic/Peer-reviewed:
- Sending signals: Trigger warnings and safe space notifications - PubMed
- Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence - harvard.edu
Other reliable sources:
- Science needs contrarians, and contrarians need support - Harvard Gazette
- Introducing Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence - harvard.edu
- Trigger warnings fall flat, but safe spaces build trust - flinders.edu.au
Fact-checked by Perplexity Sonar Pro on 2025-12-27
