So special: Visionary scientist or quack visionary?

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I'm a "special needs" parent. What that means is that I've got children who fall into the category, "special needs," needs that extend beyond what people would consider typical for children. In all honesty, I've yet to meet a child or adult who doesn't have some kind of special need, but I suppose that in the aggregate, my children's needs may be more than typically special.

The word "special" is an odd one because it can mean something rather wonderful--"You're so special to me," or something rather snarky-- "Well, isn't that special," or something rather equivocal-- "special needs child." The original meaning of the word in English, it seems, was "better than ordinary," and indeed, to me, my children are better than ordinary and have led me into my life less ordinary. In the 13th century, it came into being to mean "marked off from others with some distinguishing quality." Like I said, I've yet to meet any human being who wasn't, based on that definition, special in some way.

But some of us burn to be more special than others. I yearn, for example, to be a good writer and recognized as such and to teach well. Those are, perhaps, fairly humdrum and common ambitions. Most people have some desire to be special in some way. Even Neurotribes blogger Steve Silberman, one of the best writers alive, has admitted to feeling less than special when writing about synesthesia, the crosslinking of sensory inputs in the brain that gives color to numbers or taste to sound. As Steve writes, "for a drearily mono-sensory person like me, it's tough to read these accounts without feeling a (sour-apple green) twinge of envy." The greats among us still want to feel "special," you see.

And then there are those among us who desire another form of special, the kind that approaches what Freud might have called a "complex." Within this complex may be a genuine desire to do good in the world, but that desire lies wrapped within layers of self-investment and self-perception as a crusader or seer. One of the most common expressions of that specialness I've seen is the belief that the special person has powers of insight that others do not.

People express this specialness of insight as physicians, as parents, as teachers, as therapists, as polemicists, as politicians, as religious leaders and martyrs. And when someone expresses that specialness of insight, takes it on crusade and self-identifies as a Special One, a seer, some of us have a similar response. Because of our tendency to want that sort of magical ability in others if not in ourselves--perhaps with a twinge of that "green-apple envy"--many of us will follow that crusader and ascribe to what the Seer sees, even if it's really a whole lot of nothing.

Hanging onto a crusader, to someone who claims specific insight that others don't have, can by association make the hangers-on themselves feel special, to feel like visionaries who see what's better than ordinary in the Special One before anyone else does. That fervent needs drives these pockets of devotees, and their need to be special--to see what others do not--feeds the growing ego of the focus of their crusade. It's a playground taunt of "I know something you don't know" writ larger and with greater effect.

This need to be special--to have insight into the intangible, to predict the future based on the present's flotsam--this need drives both the followers and the followed. Some of us are happy with what our eyes tell us, with what evidence shows, with waiting until data or verdicts are in. For others, though, that desire to be special in that visionary way brings a feeling of "better than ordinary" that satiates that very human urge.

When we face a mystery, a mystery like autism, for example, that craving to be the Special One, the one who puts a finger on the core of the mystery and exposes it, has led to some of the most wasteful, anti-science crusades in modern medical history. The movement has its visionary martyrs, its visionary followers, the people who are convinced that they see what no one else--not the legions of scientists, doctors, therapists, autistic people, or parents--have seen. If a Special One uses the slightest trace of a clue to construct a signpost, those who yearn to stand out for their special insights will march dutifully down the path it indicates. That road, unfortunately, leads to wasted dollars on a cottage industry of quackery, public health nightmares, deaths from preventable illnesses, erosion of public trust in science and medicine, and divisions within communities that, by all other measures, ought to be united.

A few weeks ago, I devised a checklist of 10 questions to ask when assessing whether or not something passes the "real science" test. I should have included in that checklist that it's important to watch out for anyone who makes unusual claims to insights that others don't have, to knowledge that only they've been able to access, to a pattern that only they've visualized because of their special powers and ways of seeing. These people are not relying on shining light on their evidence or exposing their ideas to the critical and often clarifying insights of others. They're relying on their alleged power as seers--as someone special--to sell you something.

Do real visionaries in science and medicine exist? Yes, they do. But they don't invest their vision with an infusion of how special they themselves are. They turn to the not-so-special but ever-important mechanisms for demonstrating the legitimacy of their vision, to add tangibility and weight to what their insights tell them, to open their ideas to critique instead of making fantastic, unsupported claims.

In doing that, they themselves are special. Why? Because the difference between a visionary scientist and a quack visionary is taking the focus to the evidence instead of to yourself. And that, my friends, is something special.Image may be NSFW.
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