I am the most humble scientist anyone will ever meet and I defy anyone who says otherwise. (And, yes, I am hoping that that statement together with my contempt for the scientific method will qualify me for an appointment as Director of the National Science Foundation.)
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During an interview with Face The Nation in 2021. Here is the quote:
“Anybody who’s looking at this carefully realizes that there’s a distinct anti-science flavor to this, so if they get up and criticize science, nobody’s going to know what they’re talking about,” Fauci said. “But if they get up and really aim their bullets at Tony Fauci, well people can recognize that there’s a person there, so it’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science.”
Ah, you have clearly confused what Fauci meant there. Fauci is not putting himself up as the embodiment of science. He’s saying that critics are using him as a representation of science.
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As always, context is important. This comment was made just after Ted Cruz had asked the AG to launch a criminal investigation of Fauci.
A fuller quote is:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, there are a lot of Republican senators taking aim at this. I mean--DR. FAUCI: That’s OK, I’m just going to do my job and I’m going to be saving lives and they’re going to be lying.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It just, it seems, another layer of danger to play politics around matters of life and death.
DR. FAUCI: Right, exactly. Exactly. And to me, that’s- that’s unbelievably bad because all I want to do is save people’s lives. That’s what I have done for the last 50 years, 40 of which was 37 of which was leading the institute. And when I see people who scattered around misinformation and lies that can actually endanger the lives of people, but also it is very easy to pick out an individual and make them a target because that’s what people can focus on. But you’re talking about systems, you’re talking about the CDC, you’re talking about the FDA, you’re talking about science in general. So if they want to- I mean, anybody who’s looking at this carefully realizes that there’s a distinct anti-science flavor to this. So if they get up and criticize science, nobody’s going to know what they’re talking about. But if they get up and really aim their bullets at Tony Fauci, well, people could recognize there’s a person there. There’s a face, there’s a voice you can recognize, you see him on television. So it’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science. That’s dangerous. To me, that’s more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me. I’m not going to be around here forever, but science is going to be here forever. And if you damage science, you are doing something very detrimental to society long after I leave. And that’s what I worry about. [1]
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That’s not what the CBS news transcript says, and it’s not what the recording shows:
“So if they get up and criticize science, nobody’s going to know what they’re talking about. But if they get up and really aim their bullets at Tony Fauci, well, people could recognize there’s a person there. There’s a face, there’s a voice you can recognize, you see him on television. So it’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science.”
It is what was reported by Fox News, Breitbart and the Daily Mail.
You should take more care where you get your ‘quotes’ from, and cite your actual sources instead of the original source you haven’t checked. That way, when you post a misquote, the fault lies with the source you cite, not with you.
Not that you’ll take any notice. You’ve been caught lying about your actual sources before, and you’ll be caught lying about your actual sources again.
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Thank you for providing the full context. That makes it much clearer what he was saying.
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Understanding the evidence is essential too…
Like knowing that quote mining is not ‘evidence’.
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This is not to suggest that G is actively quote mining but choosing questionable sources for ‘evidence’.
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If Fauci is saying this, he is wrong for if anything, critics are using him as a representation of a system/bureaucracy, not of science. And this equivocation allows him to portray anyone who criticizes him as an enemy of science.
For what it’s worth, I agree he would have made his point better by saying that he represented the CDC/FDA/etc. But I also don’t think he meant anything as insidious as you’re implying. He’s not a politician who thinks about how his opposition is going to twist his words.
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Again, I apologize for encouraging the sea lion.
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It doesn’t matter what some-one says if their detractors are going to misquote them.
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What equivocation? Being wrong isn’t an equivocation.
Are you going to apologise for your misquote, apologise for using an unreliable source, cite your actual source, or retract your original aspertion against Fauci? Or are you just going to keep criticising him as if none of that ever happened?
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Hi Tim, here is some helpful text from the Introduction of the paper:
We argue that certain features of scientists might exert powerful influences on how trustworthy they appear to be. Recently, scholars 33,34 have called for scientists to act and communicate with greater intellectual humility (IH)—the awareness that one’s knowledge and beliefs might be limited or wrong 35. While IH is most often defined as an intrapersonal or meta-cognitive trait, other definitions include interpersonal and context-specific manifestations 35,36. In the current research, we similarly define IH as the intrapersonal awareness of the limitations of one’s knowledge, which can in turn have interpersonal and perceivable aspects (for example, respectfulness). IH is distinct from other similar traits, such as general humility, in that it specifically focuses on the limitations of one’s knowledge, as opposed to one’s general limitations 35,37. In this way, IH is uniquely relevant to the domain of science relative to general humility, as being aware of the limitations inherent to the scientific enterprise and communicating transparently about them is critical for improving the scientific process 33.
Also I put a PDF copy here.
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Ahh – they are talking specifically about Intellectual Humility – that makes sense – and avoids any need for public self-flagellation. 
The paper on the development and validation of the IH scale they used goes into a bit more depth on this.
I was amused, particularly in the context of the recent discussion of the Fauci-GOP conflict, that ‘Fig. 2 | Perceived IH of scientists separated by political orientation’ showed a highly statistically-significant difference in perceived IH between liberal and conservative scientists, with liberals having greater perceived IH.
Wikipedia describes IH as:
Intellectual humility is “a multifaceted and multilayered virtue”[2] which involves several key components that shape an individual’s intellectual disposition. An intellectually humbler person will:
- Not think too highly of themselves
- Not think that one’s beliefs or attitudes are better or more correct than other viewpoints
- Lack intellectual vanity
- Not boast or brag about their intellectual accomplishments
- Not be defensive when challenged or try to explain away their intellectual shortcomings
- Take complaints and criticism seriously
- Acknowledge their mistakes and shortcomings
- Show open-mindedness to new ideas
- “Own” their intellectual limitations[2]
It is positively associated with openness to new ideas, empathy, prosocial values, tolerance for diverse people and perspectives, scrutiny of misinformation, greater openness to learning about different political views, lower affective polarization, and higher religious tolerance.[3]
I would be interested in how such figures as Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Ken Ham, Nathaniel Jeanson and the members of the DI: Meyer, Behe, Dembski, Berlinski, etc, would rate on this.
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This one seems problematic. In science, the whole point is to discover which beliefs or attitudes are better or more correct. That’s hypothesis testing. Better would be not to maintain beliefs unsupported by the data.
Perhaps that could be better expressed, e.g. as:
Not think a priori that one’s beliefs or attitudes are better or more correct than other viewpoints
If you already ‘know’ that your beliefs or attitudes are better, you’ll be resistant (even if only subconsciously) to evidence to the contrary.
Also, we should keep in mind that IH has only recently started being applied to more testable fields such as science:
IH has received the most attention within the disciplines of philosophy and theology, but has become of recent interest in the field of psychology.[1]
It is therefore not altogether surprising that some of the wording hasn’t been updated to reflect this.
Addendum: speaking of theology, or at least a field closely tied to it – can anybody point to a Christian Apologist (academic, professional or amateur) who would rank highly on Intellectual Humility? The ones that I’ve come across seem to be in the habit of making larger-than-life, exaggerated claims and show little cognisance of “their mistakes and shortcomings”.
How does one balance openness to legitimate alternative views versus fringe or demonstrably false views?
In other words, my patience with a member of “The Flat Earth Society” is going to be quite different than if I am discussing Q versus the Farrer hypothesis in NT studies. In the former case, I’m at a loss for words. In the latter, I am considering two respected positions within a discipline.
The first situation demands of me patience and tact. The second offers me a profitable and enjoyable discussion.
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As both John and myself have already said – whether their position is supported by data/evidence would be a major factor.
Another, particularly if you have insufficient knowledge yourself in a field, would be weight of expert opinion – the balance would be far more uneven for Flat Earth than for hypotheses on the NT (if for no other reason than that it’s far easier to develop new evidence on the former issue than on the latter).
One issue with examples such as Flat Earth is that their proponents themselves would appear to demonstrate an enormous lack of IH. That, I would suspect would be true for most conspiracy theories and fringe scientific claims. And this, in itself, creates a reason to be skeptical.
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That would still be their equivocation, then. Attacking him personally for what they see as shortcomings or issues with the system is still totally misplaced. It’s scapegoating. And let’s not forget that there are people who deny the science around healthcare (RFK Jr. to pick a recent example), and simply see Fauci’s defense of anything in that sphere as a representation of it.
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