The mark of a scientist is being able to change his or her mind in light of new evidence, but when the online intellectual salon edge.org chose as its annual question, “what have you changed your mind about? why?,” I confess I didn’t have very high hopes for what the biologists, physicists and other scientists who post to the site would come up with.

In my line of work, if you are looking for a scientist who can argue the merits of genetically-modified crops, the details of human evolution or any other question, it is as rare as hens’ teeth to hear that the position the scientist currently holds is not the one he or she held in the past. Members of the species Homo scientificus just don’t change their individual minds (though the community does; that’s what we call scientific revolutions, as per Thomas Kuhn. Something to do with being identified with, and having an intellectual stake in, a certain position, I guess.

So it was refreshing that of the 119 (as I write this on New Year’s Eve day) scientists weighing in on edge.org, at least half a dozen had surprisingly humble, refreshing new thoughts on long-entrenched positions. You can read the scores of answers yourself (though I do not recommend it as a hangover cure), but these are my favorites: