The Death of Expertise
Books | Political Science / General
3.7
Thomas M. Nichols
The rise of the internet and other technology has made information more easily-accessible than ever before. While this has had the positive effect of equalizing access to knowledge, it also has lowered the bar on what depth of knowledge is required to consider oneself an "expert." A cult of anti-expertise sentiment has coincided with anti-intellectualism, resulting in massively viral yet poorly informed debates ranging from the anti-vaccination movement to attacks on GMOs. This surge in intellectual egalitarianism has altered the landscape of debates - all voices are equal, and "fact" is a subjective term. Browsing WebMD puts one on equal footing with doctors, and Wikipedia allows all to be foreign policy experts, scientists, and more.As Tom Nichols shows in The Death of Expertise, there are a number of reasons why this has occurred - ranging from easy access to Internet search engines to a customer satisfaction model within higher education. The product of these interrelated trends, Nichols argues, is a pervasive distrust of expertise among the public coinciding with an unfounded belief among non-experts that their opinions should have equal standing with those of the experts. The experts are not always right, of course, and Nichols discusses expert failure. The crucial point is that bad decisions by experts can and have been effectively challenged by other well-informed experts. The issue now is that the democratization of information dissemination has created an army of ill-informed citizens who denounce expertise. When challenged, non-experts resort to the false argument that the experts are often wrong. Though it may be true, but the solution is not to jettison expertise as an ideal; it is to improve our expertise. Nichols is certainly not opposed to information democratization, but rather the enlightenment people believe they achieve after superficial internet research. He shows in vivid detail the ways in which this impulse is coursing through our culture and body politic, but the larger goal is to explain the benefits that expertise and rigorous learning regimes bestow upon all societies.
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Author
Thomas M. Nichols
Pages
252
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Published Date
2017
ISBN
0190469412 9780190469412
Ratings
Google: 3.5
Community ReviewsSee all
"A timely but excessively cranky book. Nichols' "The Death of Expertise" rails against the public's rejection of expert authority. Nichols' goal was to present the strongest possible case for his point of view - namely that democratic "equality", sloppy news-ertainment, coddled university students, and universal internet access have created a society that increasingly relies on feelings rather than facts to make major decision.<br/><br/>There are many aspects of his critique that hit home. Yale is actually singled out for criticism in Nichols' section on "Higher Education", with references to both the Silliman screamer and the revolt against the Major English Poets course. He points out the "bizarre paradox in which college students are demanding to run the school while at the same time insisting that they be treated as children" and quite correctly writes that:<br/><br/>When feelings matter more than rationality or facts, education is a doomed enterprise. Emotion is an unassailable defense against expertise.<br/><br/>Another fun Yale connection is that Nichols' cites David Broockman (Yale '11) and Josh Kalla's (Yale '13) takedown of LaCour and Green's "An Experiment on Transmission of Support for Gay Equality".<br/><br/>But there were other parts of the book that I thought were quite unfair. Summoning his best crotchety old professor voice, Nichols inveighs against the false confidence of those who teach themselves without professional oversight. But it's never clear to me why he so disdains autodidacts. He places a high premium on experience, but as I read the book I was constantly reminded of Otto von Bismarck's famous quote, "Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others."<br/><br/>While making his case for the importance of experts, Nichols distinctly fails to acknowledge major recent "expert" failures like the chemical weapons justification for invading Iraq or the 2008 financial crash. Going back to Vietnam, the long history of "experts" making poor decisions - particularly in policy circles - probably goes a long way in explaining the public's hesitance to accept their word at face value. But this facet of the issue is ignored in Nichols' book.<br/><br/>Furthermore, his chapter on journalism wasn't nearly as strong as its counterpart in <a href="http://books.max-nova.com/war-on-science/">"The War on Science"</a>. The most interesting parts were his warnings to experts to be responsible about what they say to the media.<br/><br/>This is a book that came out at the right time, lands a few punches, but ultimately feels incomplete and unfairly pessimistic.<br/><br/>Full review and highlights at <a href="http://books.max-nova.com/death-of-expertise/">http://books.max-nova.com/death-of-expertise/</a>"
Max Nova