Not-that-unpopular opinion: Some form of soft gatekeeping is required to keep a healthy signal/noise ratio, in a lot of contexts.
The issue is, what sort of gatekeeping, and how aligned is it with the desired effect? Even simply crudely throwing up all sorts of arbitrary obstacles (e.g. various forms of academic hazing) is sufficient to at least keep out people who aren't willing to put in some sort of effort. The problem is that has a lot of collateral damage - it also loses perfectly fine people whose only flaw is a low tolerance for institutionally imposed arbitrary obstacles. A perfect gatekeeping mechanism would exclude everyone who can't contribute while presenting minimal obstacles to those who can. I don't want to speculate here what that might look like, but it's not contradictory to want everyone to have access to science while simultaneously wanting ignorant loudmouths to be gently suppressed.
If I may mutilate a beloved Pixar film, "anyone can science". But not everyone can be a scientist. Everyone should just be given a chance.
The issue is, what sort of gatekeeping, and how aligned is it with the desired effect? Even simply crudely throwing up all sorts of arbitrary obstacles (e.g. various forms of academic hazing) is sufficient to at least keep out people who aren't willing to put in some sort of effort. The problem is that has a lot of collateral damage - it also loses perfectly fine people whose only flaw is a low tolerance for institutionally imposed arbitrary obstacles. A perfect gatekeeping mechanism would exclude everyone who can't contribute while presenting minimal obstacles to those who can. I don't want to speculate here what that might look like, but it's not contradictory to want everyone to have access to science while simultaneously wanting ignorant loudmouths to be gently suppressed.
If I may mutilate a beloved Pixar film, "anyone can science". But not everyone can be a scientist. Everyone should just be given a chance.