We ended up at a dinner this summer with a man famous for his research on joint injuries. He was a sweet guy and a great dinner companion, so I won't say any more about who he is. But there was a telling moment worth recounting.
The guy placed a special order for dinner. It didn't slow anybody down. Restaurants are used to this sort of thing. What it did was to provide an opening for this guy to tell us his medical history.
A few years ago, this guy became convinced that he had Celiac disease. So he went to his doctor. His doctor sent him to a specialist. The specialist had some tests done and found no evidence of Celiac disease. He told the man of science he was feeling the normal effects of aging.
So what did the man of science do? He went ballistic on the poor specialist. He was quite proud of this. He told us he'd shouted, "Do you think I don't know what is happening with my own body?' at the poor guy.
To get the full sense of it, imagine how our man of science would have responded to a patient who insisted that a bone was out of joint because "It hurt so much", even though a series of X-rays showed everything was where it was supposed to be. Would he say to himself, "Well, this man must know what is happening with his own body"?
It's not impossible, of course, that tests might be wrong. It is unlikely though: the tests for Celiac disease are, as is common practice, set up so that a false positive is many times more likely than a false negative. But, whatever, the case, it was fascinating how quickly the man of science ditched science when it conflicted with something he really wanted to believe. Celiac disease is a real phenomenon but it's also the flavour of the month and lots of people will falsely diagnose it in themselves. Why? Most probably for the same reasons the man of science did, it's more comforting to think there is a condition at the base of your problems than to face the fact that your body is running down because you, like everyone else, are mortal.
Science is just as subject to vanity as any other field. Scientists are just as vulnerable to bias and fad as hairdressers are. If they really want to believe something, they will push that belief in the face of evidence to the contrary; they will notice evidence that backs up their belief and ignore evidence that undermines it; they will fall victim to every kind of bias there is.
This is just one guy but when considering science as a whole, it's worth remembering that scientists as a class, share certain values and prejudices. Scientists will try and tell us that they believe these things because the sort of smart people who do science are better judges than the rest of us. They are not. A joint specialist has important things to say about joints (but even that is subject to bias), an organic chemist has important things to say about organic chemistry and so on. But there isn't a stupid belief about religion (try reading what Newton thought about religion), or morality (have a close look at the personal behaviour of Tycho Brahe) or politics (have a look at the long, long list of scientists who embraced fascism and socialism in the twentieth century) that has not been embraced by otherwise brilliant scientists. None of them should have any special authority at all when it comes to religion, morality or politics.
The guy placed a special order for dinner. It didn't slow anybody down. Restaurants are used to this sort of thing. What it did was to provide an opening for this guy to tell us his medical history.
A few years ago, this guy became convinced that he had Celiac disease. So he went to his doctor. His doctor sent him to a specialist. The specialist had some tests done and found no evidence of Celiac disease. He told the man of science he was feeling the normal effects of aging.
So what did the man of science do? He went ballistic on the poor specialist. He was quite proud of this. He told us he'd shouted, "Do you think I don't know what is happening with my own body?' at the poor guy.
To get the full sense of it, imagine how our man of science would have responded to a patient who insisted that a bone was out of joint because "It hurt so much", even though a series of X-rays showed everything was where it was supposed to be. Would he say to himself, "Well, this man must know what is happening with his own body"?
It's not impossible, of course, that tests might be wrong. It is unlikely though: the tests for Celiac disease are, as is common practice, set up so that a false positive is many times more likely than a false negative. But, whatever, the case, it was fascinating how quickly the man of science ditched science when it conflicted with something he really wanted to believe. Celiac disease is a real phenomenon but it's also the flavour of the month and lots of people will falsely diagnose it in themselves. Why? Most probably for the same reasons the man of science did, it's more comforting to think there is a condition at the base of your problems than to face the fact that your body is running down because you, like everyone else, are mortal.
Science is just as subject to vanity as any other field. Scientists are just as vulnerable to bias and fad as hairdressers are. If they really want to believe something, they will push that belief in the face of evidence to the contrary; they will notice evidence that backs up their belief and ignore evidence that undermines it; they will fall victim to every kind of bias there is.
This is just one guy but when considering science as a whole, it's worth remembering that scientists as a class, share certain values and prejudices. Scientists will try and tell us that they believe these things because the sort of smart people who do science are better judges than the rest of us. They are not. A joint specialist has important things to say about joints (but even that is subject to bias), an organic chemist has important things to say about organic chemistry and so on. But there isn't a stupid belief about religion (try reading what Newton thought about religion), or morality (have a close look at the personal behaviour of Tycho Brahe) or politics (have a look at the long, long list of scientists who embraced fascism and socialism in the twentieth century) that has not been embraced by otherwise brilliant scientists. None of them should have any special authority at all when it comes to religion, morality or politics.
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