Climate contrarians like Matt Ridley have of course emphasized their results, because these few papers seem to suggest the climate won't warm quite as much over the next century as climate scientists previously thought.
A day watching CNBC, a financial television channel, or a few minutes trawling the internet should allow investors to come across every shade of opinion from perma-bear to super-bull.In any case, we are all contrarians now.
So he established a company, Tough Mudder, that charges people to subject themselves to pain and humiliation.Mr Isenberg emphasises that successful contrarians also need the self-confidence to defy conventional wisdom (Mr Dean's professors told him that he was crazy) and the determination to overcome obstacles (it took the Dimins two years to get the fishermen to change their habits).
"Keep Portland sanctimonious," mumble a few contrarians, while others savour the irony that Portland had to steal the slogan from Austin, Texas.
On the Republican side, some governors kept their posts by being economic contrarians.
Diversity of opinion is certainly welcome, but few contrarians, particularly within the insurance industry, are as sophisticated and well-informed as Mr Buffett.
Manias can last much longer than investors think, as many contrarians discovered to their cost during the dotcom boom of the late 1990s.
Indeed, some contrarians believe that today's corporate-bond spreads say more about the shaky health of the financial markets than they do about the condition of corporate borrowers.
To what extent is this a "normal" downturn, in which contrarians should be looking for the moment of maximum pessimism as a buying opportunity?
Since the start of 2010, when Greece's debt problems started to become clear, European shares have dropped by 18% and America's have risen by the same amount.But even if the European growth outlook is sluggish and no clear end to the debt crisis is in sight, there comes a point when all the bad news is reflected in the price, and contrarians should turn bullish.
So where are our British contrarians and why is it important to recognise them?
