contrarianism is not what lead people to be right about those things.
edit 1yr later: specifically, carefully reasoning through the implications is what lead them to be right. contrarianism might have lead them to a habit of carefully reasoning through implications, but people who were contrarian by default need not be right about them, whereas someone reasoning carefully does tend to end up right even when a correct claim is already popular or vice versa.
contrarianism is not what lead people to be right about those things.
edit 1yr later: specifically, carefully reasoning through the implications is what lead them to be right. contrarianism might have lead them to a habit of carefully reasoning through implications, but people who were contrarian by default need not be right about them, whereas someone reasoning carefully does tend to end up right even when a correct claim is already popular or vice versa.