The Death of Expertise

[zoogs]

Tom Nichols: The Death of Expertise

 

Really thought-provoking article, and relevant to a lot of our discussions in P&R, so I thought I'd share.

 

I like the 21st century, and I like the democratization of knowledge and the wider circle of public participation. That greater participation, however, is endangered by the utterly illogical insistence that every opinion should have equal weight, because people like me, sooner or later, are forced to tune out people who insist that we’re all starting from intellectual scratch. (Spoiler: We’re not.) And if that happens, experts will go back to only talking to each other. And that’s bad for democracy.

 

So, there are basically two ideas here. First, that we live in a world that is increasingly insistent on "hey, be moderate and fair and balanced" on everything, which introduces doubt on topics where there exists no legitimate debate (the Jenny McCarthy anti-vaccination campaign is a great example here). I completely agree with this, though whether it's new, I don't know.*

 

Second, the stipulation that formerly, pre-"democratization of knowledge", we lived in a world where experts only talked to each other, and this is "bad for democracy." It's not that I disagree at all, but that's pretty broad and loaded and I'm not sure he covered it as comprehensively as it deserved.

 

** I remember reading or hearing elsewhere how the intense media coverage of the Scopes trial (1925) gave the anti-Evolution crowd a blueprint for how they would fight their public opinion battles in the future -- by leveraging the media, which tends to fall under the 'show both sides and pat yourself on the back for good journalism' maxim. So while human nature's always been there, the effectiveness of this ploy is maybe recent...ish.

 

Lastly, off topic here, but I wandered from there to another article by the same author: Snowden, Manning, and Screwtape, which is sort of along similar lines and sort of not. That one (and the comments, to many of which Mr. Nichols responded in great detail) was even more interesting, and had me agreeing with a lot of the content, but left me with the impression that gosh, Tom Nichols is maybe just a bitter, crochety old man.

[BigRedBuster]

If I'm understanding the article, he is saying we no longer listen to experts in fields to gain more knowledge. Instead, we search out opinions of "experts" that matches our views and then hold them up to validate our views. That in turn really renders the true experts meaningless.

 

Is that the gist of it?

 

If so, I whole heartedly agree.

[carlfense]

If I'm understanding the article, he is saying we no longer listen to experts in fields to gain more knowledge. Instead, we search out opinions of "experts" that matches our views and then hold them up to validate our views. That in turn really renders the true experts meaningless.

 

Is that the gist of it?

 

If so, I whole heartedly agree.

I think that the internet might be somewhat responsible. For example, if you believe that 9/11 was an inside job you can (easily and quickly) find entire online closed communities with no exposure to reality. Facts from outside the bubble are part of the conspiracy.

[rawhide]

Probably disillusioned by bitter, crotchety young men the bastages

[zoogs]

He did make that exact point somewhere -- with the internet, you'll find someone who can support any crackpot idea very eloquently. One of his colleagues, though, argues that none of this is new at all.

 

I don't think it's exactly 'searching out experts to validate our own views' (which is very easy to do and happens), so much as it is not acknowledging the existence of expertise to begin with. The idea of equality of merit, where you (whom he derisively calls 'beautiful snowflake' ) are just as capable of forming an opinion about a topic as a person whose life work has been devoted to that study. Don't listen to these big, faceless, elitist institutions. I look at (up) the facts, and I draw my own conclusions. Conclusions which are just as valid and demand just as much respect in the conversation.

 

The second link at the bottom is a lot more loaded. He argues that this is the kind of atmosphere that results in the Snowdens and Mannings of the world being cheered under the name of 'democracy.' A term he also lays into as, well, basically a tool of Satan, quoting C.S. Lewis:

 

You are to use the word purely as an incantation; if you like, purely for its selling power. It is a name they venerate. And of course it is connected with the political ideal that men should be equally treated. You then make a stealthy transition in their minds from this political ideal to a factual belief that all men are equal. Especially the man you are working on. As a result you can use the word democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of human feelings. You can get him to practice, not only without shame but with a positive glow of self-approval, conduct which, if undefended by the magic word, would be universally derided.

 

The feeling I mean is of course that which prompts a man to say I’m as good as you.

 

rawhide, hehe, yeah But I tend to have skeptical reactions towards any 'this next generation is entitled and will bring down society' -- then again, I am biased, after all. On the one hand, past generations have been saying that since before Roman times. One the other hand, the Roman people did end up bereft of the virtue (in all areas -- late Roman art, yikes?) of their earlier days.

[Landlord]

Read this a while ago and found it really insightful.

 

 

This is one of the real consequences and drawbacks of the internet/information age - anyone can say anything and we aren't held accountable for our words, which isn't right because they have power.

[zoogs]

I don't know about not being held accountable. I love the principles of unmitigated free flow of information, and it's because of that that pretty much every crackpot gets taken to task. You'll never have one group crowing about something totally bonkers without a much larger group dismissing them as they should.

 

However, eloquence is not held under monopoly by the qualified, and the 'bad guys' can be reach quite an audience.

 

I think you could argue this isn't especially bad because the 'good guys' can make even better use of the same resources to reach an even larger audience. Which might be true. As much revulsion as the McCarthy case causes, for instance, there probably used to be a lot of (more localized) bad practice and the information to combat it wasn't nearly as out there. Perhaps all this hand-wringing is unwarranted, though to be fair, it is exactly the force that propels the good fight.

[BigRedBuster]

Part of the problem with "experts" is that they have sort of built their own coffin. So many experts have been bought and paid for by special interest groups. One prime example is environmentalist groups. There have been so many false scares or completely fabricated environmentalist issues brought up by an "expert" only to find out they are closely tied to some special interest group that I find myself being extremely skeptical of big scares when they are being brought up.

 

When this happens over and over, the public then finds themselves being skeptical when the next "expert"pops their head up.

[carlfense]

One prime example is environmentalist groups. There have been so many false scares or completely fabricated environmentalist issues brought up by an "expert" only to find out they are closely tied to some special interest group that I find myself being extremely skeptical of big scares when they are being brought up.

Which issues are you talking about?

[BigRedBuster]

One prime example is environmentalist groups. There have been so many false scares or completely fabricated environmentalist issues brought up by an "expert" only to find out they are closely tied to some special interest group that I find myself being extremely skeptical of big scares when they are being brought up.

Which issues are you talking about?

 

 

There have been many throughout the last 50 years. But, one in particular is the attack over the last 10 years on PVC. So many statements that were made by environmentalist "experts" towards PVC used in various products were flat out false and anyone working in the industry knew it. Finally, recently the main group attacking PVC has put out a statement they were going to discontinue any anti PVC actions.

 

There have been various attacks on parts of agriculture over the years that fall under the same story line.

[carlfense]

There have been many throughout the last 50 years. But, one in particular is the attack over the last 10 years on PVC. So many statements that were made by environmentalist "experts" towards PVC used in various products were flat out false and anyone working in the industry knew it. Finally, recently the main group attacking PVC has put out a statement they were going to discontinue any anti PVC actions.

Huh. I had never heard of the PVC thing. I just googled it and saw the usual mix of Mother Earth News, answers.com, etc. Weird. I know that I won't be losing any sleep over the PVC in my house.

 

I wonder if that sort of pseudo-science fear mongering is the left's rough equivalent of the right's tea party conspiracy theories? I've never really thought about it that way.

 

 

 

Edit: One thing that I do know for certain. Dihydrogen monoxide is deadly. Ever person who consumes it dies . . . and terrifyingly . . . it's present in nearly every home in the U.S.

[rawhide]

u so funny carl

 

http://www.snopes.com/science/dhmo.asp

 

snopes the bestest for the leastest

[carlfense]

u so funny carl

 

http://www.snopes.com/science/dhmo.asp

 

snopes the bestest for the leastest

Snopes is part of the conspiracy, man. Here's the real scoop:

Should I be concerned about Dihydrogen Monoxide?

Yes, you should be concerned about DHMO! Although the U.S. Government and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) do not classify Dihydrogen Monoxide as a toxic or carcinogenic substance (as it does with better known chemicals such as hydrochloric acid and benzene), DHMO is a constituent of many known toxic substances, diseases and disease-causing agents, environmental hazards and can even be lethal to humans in quantities as small as a thimbleful.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

[zoogs]

Yeah, irresponsible science denial is hardly unique to the extreme wings of the GOP. They're just better at it, but take, for example, the anti-GMO movement. There's a great article I read somewhere about this, but I can't find it anymore...

 

I don't think this is a case of the experts making their own coffin (though, of course, science is fallible, as humans are imperfect practitioners). It's more of the politically motivated using the tools of media to obfuscate under the mere guise of science. Such pseudoscience quackery - which, really, can be awfully hard to distinguish - is distinct from the domain of actual scientific consensus. But there's always some self-proclaimed expert somewhere, sometimes with a PhD, other times with just a blog.

 

 

NYT: ESSAY; Odds are stacked when science tries to debate pseudoscience -- a highly relevant piece from 2002.

 

Part of the problem is uniquely American. We in the United States are constantly regaled by stories about the limitless possibilities open to those with know-how and a spirit of enterprise (...)

 

But it is a debate that may be even more important. It is a debate on the ''fairness'' of science. The reason for the difficulty is simple. Science is not fair. All ideas are not treated equally. Only those that have satisfied the test of experiment or can be tested by experiment have any currency. Beautiful ideas, elegant ideas and even sacrosanct notions are not immune from termination by the chilling knife edge of experimental data.

[BigRedBuster]

There is a big difference between science being fallible and "experts" skewing things to meet their own agenda or agendas of people who are paying them.

 

And, yes...GMO is another good example. It has been built up to be this really scary thing that is going to kill of the human specie.......hmmmm.....not so much.