Douglas Axe is a very bright guy. He wrote what I believe is a very insightful article about what amounts to be the priesthood of science thinks about mere mortals who do not do science for a living. He comments on a graduation address from a guy who gives advice to Cal Tech grades about how they might rebuild public confidence in that the scientific community. It is very interesting to me the guy does not have an academic doctors degree (he is an M.D.), nor even a masters degree in a scientific discipline. Beside being an M.D. and professor, it appears he is mostly a public policy guy who moonlights as a “contributor” at a pseudo-intellectual magazine in New York. With not a lot of scientific background nor close proximity to anything that is remotely like the general public in America, I am wondering how he thinks he might be qualified to talk on that subject. Maybe there is something not in the public record that gives him some knowledge that is not so apparent from the outside looking in.
Axe is a working scientist who is profoundly more qualified than the graduation speaker to talk about the scientific enterprise. He says some things that make one think he might have a much better grasp not only of science, but the caricature that much of the scientific culture of the day has become. The whole article is worth a read, but here is an excerpt from Axe speaking about his own graduation from Cal Tech back in 1990:
The “we” versus “they” stance that characterizes Gawande’s speech would have resonated with me then, I think. When he said, “People are prone to resist scientific claims when they clash with intuitive beliefs,” I would have understood the coded language. “People” here means mere people — those who haven’t been inducted into the superior scientific “way of being.” So, what are we scientists to do when those unenlightened outsiders don’t follow us? Using smaller words and speaking more slowly only goes so far, because “once an idea has got embedded and become widespread, it becomes very difficult to dig it out of people’s brains — especially when they do not trust scientific authorities.”
Yes, indeed. People tend to be wary of that kind of brain surgery.
Maybe the better way to restore public confidence is to abandon the condescending mindset and embrace a much more radically inclusive view of science. Maybe the moms Gawande referred to–the ones who jumped to the conclusion that vaccines were dangerous — aren’t all that different from professional scientists who jump to the conclusion that public dissent is dangerous. Gawande gave five handy tips for writing people off as pseudoscientists, but instead of alienating people by dismissing them in this way, what if we were to view public opinion as the ultimate form of peer review?