Reignite the Dream: How We Can Overcome Hubris and Make Science Matter Again

On Wednesday November 6, many of us awoke to a changed world. The US election had just been called. And whatever side of the political divide you fall on, it needs to be recognized that it wasn't good news for today’s academic research enterprise.

This isn’t just a blip we can ignore or wait out, tempting as it might be to play it safe until/if/when the politics change. These results are a clear signal of something deeper, including an anti-science trend that anyone paying attention will have already noticed.

While some may hope that traditional scientific advocacy—just more of it, done better—will somehow be the solution, I don't think so. It certainly doesn't hurt, but it is not enough. Our advocacy is missing something fundamental.

If we don't wake up and clue into what it is that's missing, even the best-funded and most active science programs on the planet are at extreme risk of fading into irrelevance and oblivion.

This is not a time for recrimination or blame, or pointing fingers at all the "stupid people" who "don't get it." Such high-horse disparagement is at the very core of why science is in trouble.

People are fed up with being told what to do, and it’s not just about this election. In a very broad way, science has lost its connection with the people it serves. When we act like gatekeepers, telling people what they must believe without any discussion, it only adds fuel to the anti-science fire. And that fire is burning hotter than ever, evidenced by the rise of leaders who actively oppose science and seek to dismantle its influence.

Rather than pointing fingers, it’s time to take a good hard look at our own hubris. Scientific hubris has created a widening rift between researchers and the public. Too many of us act as though we hold all the answers—simply because we have the credentials, the degrees, the titles. But people don’t care about those things when they feel disrespected or looked down on. They want to be heard and understood, not treated like they’re foolish for seeing things differently.

This “we know best” attitude has alienated many of our fellow citizens. People resist when they feel coerced, especially by those who claim intellectual superiority. The more we push, the more they pull away. If we want to close this gap, we’ll need to take a different approach—one grounded in humility.

Right now, we’re relying on Push energy—trying to advance our beliefs, data, and conclusions and expecting others to simply accept what we say. Push energy is all about telling people what to think. But that approach creates resistance. People don’t want to be controlled; they want to be inspired.

Pull energy, on the other hand, draws people in—as inevitably as gravity. It invites people to think, to engage and explore alongside us as valued participants in the conversation. And humility is what makes this approach possible.

To explore what I’m talking about, let’s look at the strong backlash against the rollout of the COVID vaccine, a reaction that has mystified many of us who see the vaccine’s benefits. When we examine this backlash through the perspective of push energy and scientific hubris, it becomes easier to understand what happened.

For starters, the vaccine skeptics are not just an ignorant, faceless mob. Often, they are our neighbors.

I have a friend who doesn’t believe in vaccines. She’s not inherently anti-science, but she’s been drawn into the argument that vaccines are dangerous and that drug companies are hiding something. How has the scientific community responded to people with such concerns?

When I put myself in my friend’s shoes, I recognize that we’ve approached people with a “here, you must take this” attitude, which doesn’t win her over, or anyone else. Imagine someone waving an alien probe at you, insisting, “This will make you better!” You’re standing there, skeptical, watching them advance with this strange device, demanding your trust, just on their say-so.

Every instinct tells you to run, and rightly so.

That’s what happens when science approaches the public with authority but little empathy. For many people without a clear understanding of the science behind them, vaccines are like that alien probe. And while vaccines are remarkably effective, they’re not perfect—yet we often dismiss people’s concerns about potential risks. This can feel like gaslighting, which only compounds their fears. It feels like we’re hiding something.

Instead of pushing compliance, we could have taken the time to explain why it mattered, genuinely listening to people’s concerns. That’s pull energy—drawing people in through humility, curiosity, respect, and open conversation.

People don’t like being talked down to. And yet, that’s what we often end up doing. We’ve done the science and that gives us the kind of certainty that makes us feel justified in taking shortcuts in implementation—pushing our conclusions onto people, insisting they believe what we believe, simply because we know better, and we have the credentials.

Condescension might be the furthest thing from our minds—we’re just trying to be as efficient as possible in the interest of the greater good, right? But without a genuinely shared notion of what the greater good is, we risk the kind of widespread backfire we saw with the vaccine rollout.

Humans are freedom-seeking by nature, especially when they feel they’re being told what to do without being told the full story. My friend wants the freedom to make her own choices, and her choice is influenced by one side that speaks plainly and directly about perceived dangers, while the other side says, “The science is too complex for you. Just trust us—it’s good, it works, it’s safe, and don’t argue.”

The reaction we’re seeing today, with leaders who oppose vaccines and reject science outright, is the fruit of our hubris, however good our intentions. We pushed so hard that people pushed back—straight into the arms of those politicians who now have a carte-blanche mandate in places like the Department of Health and Human Services.

We must learn from our mistakes. Instead of pushing, we need to connect, to understand where people are coming from, and to pull them in through genuine conversation and respect. It’s the only way forward.

Anyone who grew up with even a mildly strict religious upbringing knows firsthand the feeling of having unquestionable truths crammed down your throat. My own experience was, on the surface, once removed from that kind of upbringing: my own father had rejected the narrow confines of his religious background to embrace science, and he raised us with strict respect for the authority of his new beliefs.

But in the dogma-eat-dogma reality of human experience, what that felt like was someone telling me to unquestioningly believe in something just on his say-so… sound familiar?

We are all born with at least some degree of innate human curiosity, but we tend to lose it as we grow up because we’re told to fall in line and stop asking questions, to accept what we’re told. It’s often inconvenient and sometimes uncomfortable for teachers, pastors, and parents alike to have to answer the infinite questions that kids ask.

And this happens when questioning of “the science” gets in the way of political or ego-based expediency. The expedient answers become a rigid set of beliefs that we treat like gospel, as if questioning it is some kind of blasphemy.

Many of us in the scientific community have replaced traditional belief systems with Science—with a capital S—as our new dogma. It’s not just about using the scientific method to explore and understand the world; it’s about believing that we hold the ultimate truth, and that anyone who disagrees is simply ignorant.

Any dogma is limiting, and if we couldn’t see it before, what happened on November 5th should serve as a wakeup call for how dangerous it can be when we think we have all the answers. We shut down our curiosity and dismiss other viewpoints without considering their value.

True science—the kind that changes the world—is about being open, about discovery, about exploring the unknown, about admitting what we don’t know. The moment we treat science like gospel, we undermine its power as an evolving, inquisitive process meant to help us understand an infinitely complex universe.

If we want people to engage with science, we need to let go of the hubris implicit in our identity as gatekeepers of truth. Science should be an invitation to explore together, not a club where only the “enlightened” are welcome.

Imagine we’re on the starship Enterprise, the original one from the 1970s. Scotty comes on the communicator: “Captain, 95% of the warp drive has been overtaken by this dark matter stuff, I’m not sure it’s going to work right anymore—and it could be dangerous. We don’t know what it’s doing in there!”

And what does Captain Kirk say?

“Ah, just ignore it, Scotty. It's irrelevant. The 5% we understand is good enough.”

Can anyone say BOOM?

Too often we scientists approach the unknown as if we can ignore it, as if we have everything under control. We barely understand 5% of the universe, while the remaining 95% is this vast and unexplored territory of dark matter and energy. That includes, apparently, 95% of what’s in our bodies and our cells (though who knows for sure!?)

Instead of embracing that mystery, we often pretend we’ve got it mostly figured out. Our egos don’t want to admit otherwise. We back up our ignorance with the reams of facts and data we’ve marshaled to defend it. We’ve been trained to do so. Never let down one’s guard, at any cost.

And just look at the cost now.

This is why we need more humility. The hubris of pretending we have all the answers is antithetical to true science, which is about being open to what we don’t yet understand.

People aren’t as afraid of the unknown as we seem to think—they are curious, they want to explore. (As anti-science as many conspiracy theories might seem, what are they but people looking for patterns in the dark, and how is that urge fundamentally different from what motivates us in science?) We need to advocate for the unknown, for asking questions, and for admitting that we don’t know everything. When we invite others to share our curiosity, we make science exciting and inclusive again. We make it matter.

I’m not exactly a fan of Elon Musk. He’s anti-diversity, anti-academic, and generally not the kind of guy I want to put on a pedestal. Yet many people worship him. Students I know—people who are smart, capable, and ambitious— look up to him like he’s some kind of visionary. It would be arrogant not to wonder why.

The answer isn't complicated: Musk inspires people to dream big.

He paints a vision of what humanity could do—colonize Mars, solve renewable energy issues, and push beyond limits we thought were impossible.

He invites people to believe that they could be part of something greater.

That’s powerful. And it’s something that academic science, as it is practiced today, has largely lost.

In academic circles, dreaming big is often discouraged. Challenging the status quo? Speaking up with bold ideas? Those things can get you shot down, and I know that firsthand. It’s become an environment where people are afraid to take risks because they might face criticism, rejection, or worse.

This kind of internal culture has real consequences—not just for the scientific community, but for how the world sees us.

If we’re so afraid to dream big ourselves, how can we expect to inspire others outside of academia? People don’t want condescension or self-censoring; they want vision, they want inspiration, they want excitement. Musk represents the pursuit of the impossible—while Science often looks stagnant, bound by a fear of making mistakes.

It should be abundantly clear at this moment that we can’t expect the world to change for us; we need to take the lead and to embrace a new vision of what science can be. If we take only one cue from Mr. Musk—how about we make that vision a big one?

Academic egos are legendarily a mile wide and a kilometer deep, and typically the professor—especially the professor who is also principal investigator—is at the top of that heap. My own ego was like that—simply because that’s how I was trained, how the system is set up to work.

It took me a decade after leaving academia to wake up to the hubris of that ego trip. Dropping it came slowly and painfully from experiences where my academically-trained ego got in the way of friendships, partnerships, and work relationships.

Ego is antithetical to great leadership. It dampens enthusiasm and creativity by making a team cower and restrict their willingness to think big. It sets a poor example for the outside world, because, while many “lay people” may not understand the details of the science, they do understand a big ego when they see one.

Real conversations start with listening, not lecturing. Humility is powerful, building bridges where ego-blind hubris has created divides between the academic community and the public. Humility offers a way to reconnect with our humanity—to engage without forcing, and to make science a part of everyone’s story.

If you’ve been at this for very long at all, you’ve figured out that being a scientist is as much about communicating effectively as it is about theories, research, process, and data. We start out thinking that if we just throw enough data at people—be they our grant reviewers or the general public—they’ll have to believe us. But that’s as untrue in public engagement as it is in grant writing.

Grant proposals loaded with jargon and data dumps fail to resonate with their readers. Reviewers need to be moved, to understand why what we’re doing matters.

I’ve seen the results countless times while working with clients—when they switch from data-dumping and acronym-slinging to storytelling, everything changes. A compelling story is an invitation that gets people excited about joining in on your science.

Just as we need to move grant reviewers—and even more urgently, in the next four years—we need to move everyday people. We need to explain why our research matters in ways that connect with human experiences. Why should people care about what we do? What impact will it have on their lives, their communities, or the world? When we start with those questions, and with a humble acknowledgement of the unknowns we might face as well, we invite people in, sparking curiosity and making our work matter to them.

At its best, science serves society—not just our departments, our careers. That means making it relevant to people’s lives, not protecting it behind layers of jargon and exclusivity. Relevance is what inspires public trust and keeps the field vibrant and impactful. To stay relevant in the years to come, we need to show how science connects with human needs, hopes, and challenges, making it a part of something greater than data and experiments.

At a meeting I attended with leaders in the cancer field, organized by the National Institutes of Health, a speaker dismissed the moon landings, arguing that all that money should have gone to cancer research instead. If we hadn’t “wasted” it on space exploration, he claimed, we might have cured cancer by now. I was stunned by the short-sightedness of this argument.

When it was my turn to speak, I took a different stance. I showed a graph of the world’s population—a steep curve climbing exponentially. “Maybe,” I said, “the answer isn’t to throw more money at cancer. Maybe we need to send more people to the moon.” The room fell quiet for a moment. My point was that we have to look at the bigger picture, not just our own desires for one particular cure or breakthrough. And I say this in all earnestness, having lost a very close loved one to cancer.

The moon landing didn’t just put people on the moon; it inspired millions around the world to dream, to reach for something, and to pursue careers in science and technology. Such sparks of inspiration can do more to advance society, on a multitude of fronts, than any single solution.

This is the kind of relevance science needs today. By approaching our work with humility, communicating clearly, and making our research relatable, we can reconnect with society and ignite the curiosity and support that science needs to thrive.

I left academia in 2013 because I was fed up with the hubris and bureaucracy. Over and over, I’d seen science stifled by ego, by a need to maintain power and control, and by a fear of anything that challenged the status quo. I wanted to do science that was driven by curiosity and open-mindedness, not personal agendas or the constant fear of getting torn down by reviewers just for daring to dream differently.

I had played the game well, but it burnt me out and caused deep disillusionment. Mine was a version of the widespread disillusionment that has led to the current backlash against science.

I know the idea of changing our approach may strike you as far-fetched. The reasonable thing to do is to put your head down, work hard, and avoid making waves—especially if you’re pre-tenure!

But it’s abundantly clear now: times have changed.

The recent US election isn’t the cause; it’s a signal—a clear harbinger that the status quo isn’t enough. Putting our heads down and staying silent won’t cut it anymore.

It’s a recipe for disaster, both individually and collectively.

Let’s make science what it was always meant to be: a quest for understanding, not for glory. Let’s make science relevant and visible again, engaging people in ways we haven’t seen for decades. Imagine a science culture rooted in exploration, collaboration, and genuine curiosity—one that serves society and inspires the world.

Let’s take science beyond the walls of academia and into the hearts and minds of our neighbors.
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Now it’s your turn: I’m eager to hear your experiences and thoughts.

Let’s start a deep conversation about how we can bring science back to relevance in this anti-science era.