Dr. Steven Novella

I'll tell you, same thing is true of a good scientist.

Again, I'm coming from an academic culture, so I'm biased by that.

It's harder for me to speak to your average person out in the field in private practice.

But certainly within academia, humility is critical.

And I'll tell you, you can't fake it to other academics.

You know what I mean?

You can't fake expertise to an actual expert, because they'll see you coming a mile away.

And when somebody gets high on their own stuff, they get too full of themselves, everyone else knows it.

The other people in their very small community can usually sniff that out.

if you're not being humble.

And what being humble just means is you realize the burden is on you to prove everything you're claiming.

And people are going to come at you and say, yeah, but did you consider this?

What about this other study that this other guy published?

Did you account for that?

And if you didn't do that yourself, if you weren't your own most vehement skeptic, other people will be it for you, and then they'll be critical of you for not being your own worst skeptic.

That is the standard within science, academia, and skepticism.

And if you're deviating from that, man, you can fool the public, whatever.

You can't fool other experts, man.

They'll see it coming.

Sometimes.