published 07/28/09
Dear Scientists
It’s okay to be elitists!
by Paul Ingraham, Vancouver, Canada MOREclose
Credentials and qualifications
I am a writer and retired Registered Massage Therapist (unusually well-trained for a massage therapist, a 3000-hour program). I’m almost done with a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree. I am a peer reviewer for The Natural Standard, and a copyeditor for Science-Based Medicine. My most important qualification is more than a decade of workaholic post-graduate study, clinical experience, and constant conversations with readers from around the world, including many experts who have provided countless suggestions and criticisms.
For more information, see: Who Am I to Say? More information about my qualifications, credentials and professional experiences for my readers and customers.
Credentials and qualifications
I am a writer and retired Registered Massage Therapist (unusually well-trained for a massage therapist, a 3000-hour program). I’m almost done with a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree. I am a peer reviewer for The Natural Standard, and a copyeditor for Science-Based Medicine. My most important qualification is more than a decade of workaholic post-graduate study, clinical experience, and constant conversations with readers from around the world, including many experts who have provided countless suggestions and criticisms.
For more information, see: Who Am I to Say? More information about my qualifications, credentials and professional experiences for my readers and customers.
Slowly but surely I have become known as the massage therapist to the scientists of Vancouver. Okay, that’s a lie: I’m sure that no one has ever actually said that except me. But they might. As anyone who knows me knows, I have major science envy. Science floats my boat. I would give almost anything to go back in time to high school, pull my teenaged head of out my you-know-what, and take a some damned science courses. I could be in a lab today.
But you know what my scientist clients tell me?
“Stick to armchair science. You’re better off.”
Scientists are frustrated. Science is an amazingly thankless job. They get it from both ends. Academia can be pretty brutal. And society gobbles up the fruits of their labours and then, generally speaking, sneers at them for being elitist, blames them for every abuse of technology, tries to tell them how to do their jobs. Meanwhile, on a third front, the media gets almost everything about science hopelessly wrong. So scientists warn me away.
“We’re not kidding,” they tell me. “You’re better off just being friends with scientists and reading books about it. The actual job is for chumps. We’re total chumps. The chumpsters. Chumpinators. Chumparoonies.”
And then they launch into another account of their mind-blowing work on the frontiers of human knowledge.
I like scientists
One of the main reasons I like science is that I like scientists. Not all of them, of course not, but most of them. And I’ve known (and massaged) quite a few by now. Scientists are, by and large, really neat people. They really know where their towels are. I know several scientists who are:
- Funnier than I am.
- Better athletes that I am.
- Better looking than I am.
- More socially competent than I am.
And, more than anything, what I like best about scientists is the same thing that a lot of people seem to resent:
- Approximately one hundred times smarter than I am.
And yet they are forever apologizing for it and trying to seem folksy and non-elitist. Give it up, scientists. Be elitist. Do it. Be smart, act smart. Raise the bar. Be awesomely better educated than the average schmoe. You’re rock stars. You’re astronauts. You’re leaders.
The knowledge chasm
The more humans learn, the more there is for humans to be ignorant of. One of the interesting consequences of an “advanced” society is that the gap between the educated and the uneducated has widened to an unbridgeable chasm.
The gap is real, and widening, and it’s a serious social issue. But it’s just not a problem scientists can solve. It is not their job to fix epidemic scientific illiteracy, as Chris Mooney seems to think.
Yes, of course, some scientists should make some effort to be good teachers and communicators — outreach is important for every profession. But most of you, most of the time, should just be doing science. Scientists should mostly be busy widening the gap. Trying to bridge it is a different (and very difficult) job. Leave science education and journalism to well-trained educators and journalists.
Not Oprah. Good news: she’s fired. I fired Oprah this morning. Someone should let her know. Actually, let’s all let her know that her opinions on medical science are no longer required.
The more humans learn, the more there is for humans to be ignorant of.
