Professionalism Protectionism

Several of the podcasts I listen to have touched on the distinction between science and pseudoscience. The root motivation for this distinction is, I believe, to preserve the image and reputation of “scientists”. The problem of creating a distinction between “us” and “them” and "good" and "bad" is common to many, if not all, categories of people, but it is especially obvious with professionals.

This panicky protection of the power of the professional image interests me professionally and avocationally. I am an immigrant to Canada with an engineering degree the Professional Engineers of Ontario will not recognize, despite treaties and agreements between the Canadian and US accreditation boards. The Professional Engineers of Ontario want to protect their precious pretentious reputations from anyone who does not fall within their tightly drawn lines of distinction between the rest of us and Them.

While the preservation of the professional image is, on one hand, laughable, ridiculous, and infuriating, it is, on the other hand, perfectly understandable. Even when quality is not considered, if professional standards are not enforced, the service provided by the professional and the image associated with the profession become vague and diffuse. The identity of the profession weakens, and when the identity weakens, the power and prestige weakens. In the end, only the professions which protect their images continue to exist as defined entities.

The preservation of quality is another good reason for being eagerly exclusive. The benefits of clear engineering, accounting, or legal standards are fairly obvious but are more clouded for the medical or scientific professions. Science and medicine are rapidly growing and developing fields in which standards and regulations inhibit innovation, but without which, end up becoming filled with quackery. Professional snobbery provides an essential evolutionary pressure in weeding these out.

The popularization of science is where pseudo-science comes to play. Successful popularization of scientific ideas depends heavily on how entertaining the ideas are made to appear. The entertainment factor is the primary evolutionary pressure for the popularity of scientific ideas. Ideas which are not interesting, exciting, or easy to use to entertain friends are simply not going to last long or go very far. But when scientific concepts or discoveries are spiced up with too much of the entertainment factor, then they become pseudo-science. It is both ironic and appropriate that science podcasts, and the popular science authors they interview, are complaining about pseudo-science, since an outside observer probably would not see much distinction.