By Neli Demi
In recent days, I have been reading with attention numerous reactions about Anthony Fauci, the pandemic and the documents that are being published in the United States. If these documents prove errors, manipulations or even fraud, then they should be investigated to the end. No one should be above the truth and no one should be above the law.
But there is something else that is equally disturbing.
I see doctors speaking of their colleagues in hateful language. Words like “amoeba,” “Lucifer,” “bastard,” “scarecrow,” “criminal,” “satanic” are replacing argument. Absolute certainty is replacing methodological doubt. Moral condemnation is replacing critical analysis.
Science is not a religion with prophets and heretics. It is not a moral court where guilt is declared by social media posts. It is not a forum where the loudest person wins. Science is a method. A discipline of thinking. It lives on evidence, on the possibility of being contradicted, and, above all, on the willingness to admit that we may be wrong.
Yes, the pandemic produced mistakes. Perhaps more than we are yet ready to admit. Some decisions may have been wrong. Some institutions may not have been transparent. Some individuals may have protected their reputations more than the truth. If so, this should come to light.
But how we seek truth is as important as the truth itself. For if we replace analysis with anathema, evidence with conviction, and argument with demonization, we are not correcting the mistakes of the past. We are constructing a new dogma.
As a psychiatrist, I have learned that unwavering conviction is not necessarily a sign of truth. It is often a sign of difficulty tolerating uncertainty. Science, on the contrary, teaches us to live with uncertainty until the evidence reduces it. But here I see an even more disturbing phenomenon.
When identity becomes more important than method, even science begins to behave like politics.
Then we no longer defend hypotheses; we defend ourselves. We no longer seek evidence; we seek confirmation. We no longer judge an argument by its strength, but by the person who makes it. Any new information is seen not as an opportunity to correct the thought, but as a weapon to win the battle.
This is exactly what happens in politics. And when it starts happening in science, we lose our bearings.
The paradox is that radicalization knows no ideology. It doesn't just affect those who deny science; it can also affect those who claim to defend it. Because radicalization doesn't start when you're wrong. It starts when you stop accepting that you can be wrong.
Just as political power is corrupted when it is identified with truth, so epistemic power is corrupted when it is identified with science. No one is science. We are merely participants in a shared process, where authority does not stem from status or titles, but from respect for method and a willingness to submit to evidence.
In this sense, authority is not a privilege. It is a responsibility.
A doctor's word is not just a personal opinion. It carries the weight of a profession that society has built on trust. Therefore, the greater the authority someone claims, the greater the humility with which they speak.
I'm not afraid of new documents. I'm not afraid of investigations. I'm not afraid of the possibility that some of our beliefs during the pandemic may turn out to be wrong.
Something else actually worries me!
That doctors will start talking like preachers, while the public will no longer be able to distinguish where science ends and propaganda begins. Ultimately, a doctor's authority is not measured by how many people he convinces, but by how much he respects the method that made him a doctor. Science does not need blind faith. It needs integrity. And integrity is not measured by how loud we shout, but by how faithful we remain to the method, especially when the facts challenge our beliefs.
