ABSTRACT
None of us have expertise in all the fields of knowledge on which we depend. We take our cars to mechanics, our children to physicians, and our cell phones to technicians, and we are often in no position to assess the claims these people make. We may be expert in one or two of these fields of knowledge but we are unlikely to be expert in all of them. This is not just a feature of our contemporary situation. This has been so for at least as long as we have historical records of our dealings with knowledge. The ancient Greeks distinguished between exoteric and esoteric knowledge. The former was open to all and so widely shared. The latter, on the other hand, was kept for initiates alone. The Hippocratic Oath, commonly attributed to Hippocrates of Kos, a fifth century BCE physician, has an intriguing clause:
Medical knowledge was esoteric and was to be kept secret. The discoveries, principles, tests, and treatments were to be kept within the inner circle whose members have taken the professional oath. This secrecy strikes us as perverse and indeed in tension with the essential democratic character of science. The idea that we would keep knowledge secret, and in particular that we would consider keeping it secret with a view to benefitting from that secrecy cuts against the basic conception of science as open to all. This openness of science has two aspects. First, that the body of scientific learning is a body of doctrine that is open to anyone who would seek to understand it, but also it has a second aspect, and this may be even more important: Any scientific claim can be challenged by anyone. It is not restricted to a professional class or guild or initiates into an esoteric cult. We all have the right to enter into the debates because the evidence and reasoning is open to all so that any theory can be
an object of criticism.* This does not mean that just any comment on any theory is as significant a criticism of the theory as any other comment-democracy does not mean that all voices are equally compelling-but it does mean that the challenge “Why do you think that?” raised to someone propounding a scientific claim cannot be dismissed and must be answered.
