Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper tweeted recently that he was “the only scientist in the Senate” and therefore knew “a thing or two about combating climate change and defending public health.”
Senator Hickenlooper didn’t elaborate further on the claimed threats either.
This incident wasn’t just a politician touting his résumé and demanding people respect his authority - it was a case study in Scientism—the misuse of scientific credentials as a political (pun not intended) trump card.
It also carried a tone of self-importance that says as much about the man as it does about his message.
Should people appeal to Hickenlooper’s authority?
Probably not.
John Hickenlooper was born in 1952 in PA, attended the elite The Haverford School and later earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wesleyan University. By 1980, at the age of 27 or 28, he had completed his graduate degree in geology and entered the petroleum industry. There’s some irony there considering he’s now a climate change hysteric. Nothing on his résumé indicates he has any background in public health either.
His geology career was short-lived. He was laid off in 1986 during the oil bust, and by 1988 he had left geology for good. For nearly four decades since, Hickenlooper has been a businessman and politician: co-founding Denver’s Wynkoop Brewing Company, then serving as Denver mayor, Colorado governor, a brief presidential candidate (2019), and is now U.S. senator.
In other words, he’s now a career politician.
The last time he practiced geology, or for the matter anything remotely scientific Ronald Reagan was president and the Berlin Wall still stood. Yet in 2025, he presents himself not as a career politician with business roots, but as “the only scientist in the Senate.”
His phrasing reveals more than strategy—it reveals narcissism. By stressing that he is “the only scientist,” Hickenlooper casts himself as uniquely enlightened, uniquely qualified, uniquely indispensable.
His implicit message is: trust me, defer to me, because no one else is qualified.
This is not how good science works. Science thrives on replication and dissent, not solitary authorities. Hickenlooper’s boast is not humility before evidence but self-regard masquerading as expertise.
Does any of this mean that one should dismiss anything that Hickenlooper says? Probably not. But if he’s going to make bombastic claims, he better bring some evidence to the table.
This is extra double funny because Senator Rand Paul is a doctor who still practices medicine. During COVID he was actually treating patients, which actually made him extremely qualified to critique the government response. And his political opponents treated him like he was some kind of uncertified quack.
It’s odd, but if you have to tell everyone you’re an expert, you likely aren’t.