The Only Certainty Is Uncertainty: Stuart Firestein on Science in the Age of Tony Fauci

**Andrew Keen** (0:00)
Hello, my name is Andrew Keen. Welcome to Keen On America, the daily interview show about the United States.
Hello, everybody. It's Tuesday, August 4th, 2026 over the last few days, one of America's most controversial and in some ways respected and perhaps disrespected scientists, Anthony Fauci, has been in the news, in and out of the news, it seems, over the last few years, but certainly over the last few days, his diary has been revealed. The Atlantic, which tends to be a left of center magazine, is slightly critical of what Anthony Fauci's diary tells us about Washington, DC and the intimacy between science and media, science and politics. Even The New Yorker, another left of center publication, talks about the failures of the Fauci hearing. They're no great friend of Rand Paul, of course, who's running the hearing, but they're also, I think, in some ways, rather disappointed with the performance of Anthony Fauci. He was once a saint. Now many people see him as a kind of devil. It raises the question of not just science, but scientists, whether we should be respecting them, whether we should be skeptical of them, and whether indeed they should be themselves more skeptical, which is the subject of our conversation today. Stuart Firestein is another highly respected American scientist. He's a neurobiologist at Columbia University and the author of an intriguing new book. It's out today called It Could Be Otherwise, Science in the Age of Uncertainty, and he's joining us from Connecticut. Stuart, congratulations on the new book. Have you been following this Fauci thing? It's hard to miss, isn't it?

**Stuart Firestein** (2:13)
It is. I followed it a bit, but I was, as I've been abroad actually for the last three weeks, I've just returned and it's not as big news over there, of course, as it's turned out to be here. So I'm still catching up a bit on it.
But I mean, I've known about Fauci for years, even long before the pandemic, because of his role at NIH and his earlier role in HIV and the AIDS, all the research on AIDS and so forth and so on. So he's been around for quite a long time and he's been controversial for quite a long time.

**Andrew Keen** (2:46)
Yeah, as you say, you haven't been following it that closely. I don't want to turn this just into a conversation about what's happening with Fauci. But I think the critique of him, certainly from the right, is he was a little too certain in his pronouncements. Sometimes those pronouncements weren't accurate. Sometimes they were rather political. Does it suggest to us, Stuart, that scientists need to be a little bit more careful about what they do and don't say about science in our age of uncertainty?

**Stuart Firestein** (3:19)
Of course, one could always be more careful about what one says, especially not only in this age of uncertainty, but in this age of everything you say is instantly broadcast around the world, and sometimes out of context or even when it's in context, it might not be exactly what you're intended to say or how it would come off. We could all be more careful. On the other hand, if all we are is careful and just stay inside the lines, the world isn't going to be that interesting.
I think the trick is to find that blend. I like to point out that, I mean, I'm not defending Fauci in this particular case, but I think science and scientists require a kind of a blend of hubris and humility. And you have to balance those. If you don't have a certain amount of hubris, you're just not even going to try science because it's mostly failures. You spend most of your time in the dark. You spend a lot of time in the unknown and mysterious. You fail quite a bit.
And so, I mean, you know what? Isaac Newton really thought he could figure out the mind of the creator with a few equations if he didn't have a bit of hubris. On the other hand, one has to have the humility to know that we really don't know very much of all that's out there and that a lot of what we do know has a high degree of uncertainty. And the uncertainty is kind of critical. I mean, uncertainty is what tells you that science is reliable. It's the people that are certain, that are absolutely certain, that have an answer, a solution. They're the ones you have to watch out for, in my opinion. And Fauci was occasionally guilty of just that, I agree.

**Andrew Keen** (4:55)
Yeah. And of course, he came to prominence during COVID, where everyone was looking for certainty. We were suddenly engulfed in this massive crisis.