Science, Celebrities, and Public Engagement

摘要

In April 2015, two prominent public scientists demonstrated, in radically different ways, the rising power of celebrity in science. That month, the talk show host and surgeon Mehmet Oz stood at the center of a maelstrom of controversy after a group of doctors told Columbia's dean of medicine they were dismayed that Oz remained on the medical school's faculty. They accused Oz of promulgating unproven health advice for personal gain. They argued that the public was being "misled and endangered." Vox magazine in the same month called Oz "arguably the most influential health professional in America," but lamented that over his career he had "turned away from science and embraced fame." As a consequence, on health advice, Oz was "leading America adrift."