He's an MD in Portugal working on a ICU, the author of two great iPhone apps: CodeCPR and Infusion and trying to build a website about hemodynamic monitoring.
Disagree entirely. A lot of ELI5 is not dumbing down, it's dejargonizing topics that are hard to understand without significant experience in the field.
I am not sure I understand why people are upset at the idea of trying to help explain complex topics to people who might not understand every aspect of it. For every person who "falsely believes they understand" a topic might there be people who are more engaged and interested in a topic that had previously been obtuse to them?
It's the 'things should be as simple as possible and no simpler' issue --- you can be pushed into 'fake explanations' that are misleading, especially if you need to get something approved/sold.
I don't think anybody is upset about trying to effectively communicate complex topics. What's problematic is "like I'm five", which is sometimes the right level of complexity, but more often not. Depending on the context is can be mildly insulting to one or both parties, and it also suggests that the burden is entirely on the person giving the explanation, rather than the listener making an effort to understand.
Except as nickoneil points out, most explanations on r/eli5 are not actually for 5 year olds and mostly de-jargonized and accessible. They may lack a lot of the subject's nuisance, but they are not insulting.
Alt-text: "'Am I taking care of you? I have a thesis to write!' 'My parents are at their house; you visited last--' 'No, no, explain like you're five.'"
Title: "This comic shows estimated average frequency. I wanted to include the pitch drop experiment, but it turns out the gif format has some issues with decade-long loops."