Alright... just because I feel like a big, hairy Johnson now for being surly with a cute little sloth:
I concede that I am not a professional scientist and am not at all involved in work of the scientists I do know. My perceptions of scientists comes almost completely from magazines, news stories and popular science books. Consequently, it is possible that my perceptions are completely wrong and come entirely from shallow media coverage, badly-written books and disingenuous filmmakers.
That said, my perception of scientist is such that I find this story to offer an apt satire.
EDIT: No, actually I take that back. I know that many "experts" are total charlatans. Like the gynecologist who diagnosed my wife's endometriosis as psychosomatic. Like the doctor who diagnosed some children I know as developmentally disable just because no one had ever taught them to read. Like the psychiatrist who tells me friend that the solution to her depression is to take drugs and attend therapy rather than cease her self-destructive lifestyle.
I actually feel quite comfortable saying that a not insignificant percentage of people with impressive credentials are dishonest or incompetent, based on my experience with them even if on nothing else.
If a person hangs the sign "doctor" over their door but lacks any competency in medicine, then I call that person a charlatan*. My point is that we laymen should be skeptical and cautious of people who claim to be experts, because it is quite likely that you will meet more than one person in your lifetime who claims to be an expert but is not. I see a lack of this healthy skepticism and caution in our society, where people blithely swallow whatever "experts" claim without thinking about it for themselves.
Now hopefully any further discussion of me can be done with an accurate understanding of my position.
*Oxford American Dictionary - Charlatan - a person falsely claiming to have special knowledge or skill; a fraud. See note at "quack"
What I see in our society is not a lack of healthy skepticism; what I see is general ignorance of facts due to apathy. The General Population doesn't understand scientific method or basic logic, but instead tunes in to a favorite media outlet (on the level of Oprah, or the Today Show) for their information. Most of the information gained that way comes straight from major corporations trying to boost sales, or improve an image, and when a "scientist" is cited, they are usually on the payroll of whatever company is trying to push their product via the "news". (Me, I get my basic news from NPR, and when something sounds controversial or slanted, I check it out on the 'net with independent sources. Usually, NPR news is factual and free of opinion... but naysayers point to the opinion programming to characterize the whole org as "slanted".)
A great example of an area with a lot of faulty "scientific" information due to corporate manipulation is the food industry. There have been SO many nutrition fads based on so many conflicting studies (oat bran will save the universe! - remember that one?) that any expert in the field is suspect. But what has happened because of that? Now ALL scientists are suspect, and if people don't like what the actual science shows (not "proves", but indicates, mind you) rather than use logic or scientific method to test the evidence, they find examples of "bad scientists", paint the scientist in question as "suspect"... or as a charlatan... and dust their hands off, happy to have stayed blissful in the matter.
(The fact that this technique has been professionalized and institutionalized in American government over the last 7 years due to the appointment of business cronies rather than Real Experts is a source of my great frustration. Apologies if that frustration has spilled over on anyone in our happy little forum.)
Me, I'm a big Word Guy (not to be confused with
Word Girl, the vocabulary superhero). I appreciate that words and their meanings can be used in a lot of amazing ways, and that we all try to leave wiggle room when we assert Great Truths, in case we made a mistake. But in the examples above, Mr. Tweedy uses quantity words badly to make his point:
I know
that many "experts" are total charlatans. - You don't say how many, but no matter how "many" you know, you do not have a statistically significant amount of personal knowledge. This assertion, even if intended to introduce healthy skepticism, really just commits the sin of judging the whole body of scientific professionals by the handful of quacks that you know personally. I was in the military for 7 years, and suffered a panoply of fools under the TriCare system; a lot of them were tired, overworked, and rarely saw the same patient twice before being rotated out to the field or to another unit. I went in with a sinus infection once, and the Dr. came into the room with a can of nitrogen and said "Drop your drawers, we're going to freeze it off." My healthy skepticism saved me there, and I pointed out his mistake. BUT, despite my experiences and the big splash that Walter Reed made recently... I cannot make the claim that military doctors are charlatans.
a not insignificant percentage of people with impressive credentials are dishonest or incompetent, based on my experience with them even if on nothing else. - a not insignificant percentage of PEOPLE are dishonest or incompetent; but you don't have a number to put on that perenctage, and you still base it on your statistically insignificant experience.
it is quite likely that you will meet more than one person in your lifetime who claims to be an expert but is not. Just as dangerous is the person who repeatedly asserts "I'm no expert, but I know THIS TRUTH, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise... even if you cite experts, because I've known charlatans and no longer trust anyone but me." At least, that's what I have decided after meeting a statistically insignificant portion of the human population.
