Ken Caldeira on scientists who "make poorly supported assertions in areas outside of their expertise"

Fresh Views on Climate Scientists as Advocates - NYTimes.com: "There is a disease wherein one develops expertise in one area and then feels free to pontificate on other areas about which one knows nothing. This is an affliction of many senior scientists, common even among Nobel Prize winners, and an affliction to which I have not been immune.

If someone is speaking with great confidence while uttering pure hogwash, this does tend to reduce confidence in the utterances of the scientist.

So, there is a cost to science and to our personal credibility when scientists make poorly supported assertions in areas outside of their expertise."