Against Experts
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It is to the influence of the opinion of those whom the multitude judges best informed, and to whom it has been accustomed to give its confidence in regard to the most important matters of life, that the propagation of errors is due.
Pierre-Simon Laplace
An exercise to begin: attempt to make a distinction between the noun-verb pairs that follow—
i. A judge orders.
ii. An expert says.
If this exercise were a test one had to pass in order to continue reading, I am sad to announce we have lost not only most members of the media, but also an alarming percentage of the public. Both have failed to realize any material difference between these two sentences that constitute a difference material to our society.
Throughout this continued pandemic era, the public continues to be strangled by the decree of so-called experts; both by those who purport to be these experts and especially by those who claim to speak on their behalf. Our necks are further squeezed by any attempt to question not only what these experts say, but who these experts are in the first place, and on account of what qualifications and experience they derive their expertise from.
Indeed, the glorification of the expert is subverting the natural course of rational decision-making and suffocating the healthy breath of sociopolitical discourse. The mere mention of the ‘E-word’ has evolved into a trump card in any argument or discussion. If you are having trouble convincing someone of your opinion, try invoking the vaunted expert and assert that your opinion is shared by an expert — any expert, any number of experts (for there is apparently no need to specify who the experts are or what they claim to be an expert on)—and you will soon be looking down at your one time adversaries nodding and kneeling at your feet in gentle agreement.
Take Moses’ parting of the Red Sea or Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon; can these figures and acts not be better understood through the interpretation of experts that have simply said? Perhaps if God had only thought to reference himself as an expert, he would now have eight billion perfectly pious followers.
Do not get me wrong: the battle I wage is not against knowledge or the notion of expertise per se, but rather against the vague conception of, fallacious reference to, and misguided reverence for experts of the present day. The venerable Luke Burgis takes a similar position in his own attack on experts, in an essay entitled The Cult of Experts, writing “there is nothing inherently problematic with expertise.” As Luke would agree, there is a long way from having expertise to being an expert. Being an expert is not an automatic consequence of having expertise.
I argue that while experts can exist, their existence must be defined by a set of limitations. These strict conditions are direct responses to the most egregious errors we are make in our understanding and treatment of experts. The three factors are the hopefully form part of the antidote to the second pandemic of our own creation: the disease of experts.
- Constraint: The scope of an expert’s expertise is constrained.
- Non-transferable: An expert’s expertise is non-transferable.
- Fallibility: An expert remains fallible.
An expert is limited in scope
Can a certain level of someone’s knowledge and experience fairly characterize them as an expert in the first place? At the root of the question of an experts existence lies a paradox: that a true expert on any given subject would swiftly deny such an accusation and renounce this assigned title under the Socratic assumption that there is always more unknown than known. Yes, any self-respecting, self-realizing, deserving expert worthy of the term is surely expert enough to know their they hold beliefs could be false, and that there could be an equally worthy expert that holds diametrically opposing beliefs. This individual would therefore likely neither refer, nor allow themselves to be referred to, as experts.
Current experts prosper without such rudimentary concern. More egregious still are the areas which today’s experts claim to be experts in. Even in conceding that there are experts, there are simply fields in which you cannot be an expert. These domains are outside the potential realm of expertise; for example, nobody can be an expert on humanity, on society, on governance, on religion, on government, on public health, or on managing public health in pandemics. You can have great knowledge of these areas, you can be well informed, you may even have expertise, but you are not an expert in these fields—your strongest conviction is but one uncertain, unproved, theory. An expert’s scope must be limited—if experts do exist at all, they must eat off a much smaller plate.
Through this understanding, the title of expert may need not be cast completely aside if the particular domain of the expert is limited in scope. This restriction is a profound difference from how experts are currently referring to themselves and more importantly from experts are being referred to by us. These days, something crucial is missing in the manner by which experts are referred, namely, a descriptor of their expertise. So while there may be no such thing as an expert, there might be such thing as an x expert, with x not being a complex, multi-variate field, as previously established.
If specificity is the friend of expertise, generalization or absence of detail is its foe. To this end, I would be more interested in hearing from a D-Day expert than a World War II expert on the D-Day landings at Omaha Beach. On the same topic, I would prefer to hear from a WWII expert over a war history expert, and a war history expert over a history expert (if there can be such a thing). Too much specificity, while still expertise, is not always desirable either. In the other direction, I would be more confident in an Omaha beach landing expert than the D-Day expert, but perhaps less interested in an expert on one particular soldier who landed at Omaha beach than the Omaha beach landing expert or even the D-Day. Still, the degree of confidence in an expert seems to grow at an inverse rate to their range of expertise; the more limited the scope, the more likely the expert, and vice versa.
By these findings, here is an acceptable use of the term expert and an acceptable claim in line with such expertise:
A William Makepeace Thackeray expert says Thackeray conceived the idea for Vanity Fair not upon of his visitation of Marlborough House, as previously theorized, but instead on his tour of Gloucester House the following week in June 1846.
Our expert makes a limited claim in line with his compact field of expertise. The Thackeray expert is an expert, but he is a Thackeray expert, and most importantly he makes a claim about Thackeray. A Thackeray expert speaking about Thackeray is the kind of expert and the kind of expertise we should seek and value. Note that the expert’s expertise was defined before the particular claim was outlined—experts should always be described by a modifier on what they are an expert in, which should itself be a limited area, per this first principle. In reality, you would be lucky to find a single instance of such descriptors on any news bulletin, on any front page, moving through any chyron. We are given no indication of what our experts are experts about, let alone if they are eligible to be experts in the areas they claim. However, this particular uncertainty is hardly the most egregious error in our reference to experts. More cardinal to our existing misconception of experts is that we wrongly take the title of expert to be transferable to domains outside their limited scope, if that scope is provided at all.
An expert is non-transferable
Being an expert in one area (to the degree this is possible) does not make someone an automatic expert in another domain. Related expertise perhaps entitles someone to comment with more knowledge, but not for that comment to have an untouchable divine status based on other, unrelated, non-transferable qualifications such as expertise in a separate area. The title of expert ought to be stripped upon departure from the domain of any given expert’s expertise. It sounds obvious, but that this habit has not been practiced is perhaps the biggest flaw in our current treatment of experts.
As Matt Ridley has discussed(here with Naval), a great tragedy of the pandemic has been individuals thrust into foreign roles. By our terms, experts in one field have operated, as experts, in fields outside their expertise, and yet have still retained the title of expert in their new, unknown field. Doctors have become economists, economists have become epidemiologists, epidemiologists have become (unelected) leaders, and elected leaders have become a wanting combination of all.
Any expert’s expertise must be non-transferable: being an expert in one field does not lend itself to expertise in another. A viral disease expert should either (preferably) lose the title of expert, or at least maintain the title of a viral disease expert when commenting on economics, politics, public health, or really anything outside the viral disease scope.
Let us return to our very same Thackeray expert, and consider that it today’s reference of experts, they could offer a passing opinion about the management of society in a pandemic, and still be called an expert by any news organization in the world. Apparently, legitimate being an expert in one limited area has made him an expert in any and all fields. This false equivalency is solved with the use of descriptors, for without them we are either all experts, or none of us are.
Fault lies in attempting to transfer expertise any direction, fault that should reveal itself by proper description, whether upwards (more general: D-Day expert on WWII), downwards (more specific: WWII expert on D-Day), and sideways (D-Day expert on sunflower planting practices). An epidemiology expert neither has automatic expertise in COVID-19 (downwards), or in biology (upwards). A biologist does not have expertise in epidemiology (downwards), or public health (upwards). So, let us take an expert who says society should be governed in some way (they are not hard to find). Deaf ears: we are missing the necessary qualifier, besides, it is not possible to be an expert on society. Another try: Bacterial expert says society should be governed in some way. Deaf ears again: I’d like to use more profanity, but what does the small expertise in one area, of some bacteria, I won’t try to get to technical, lead that person to think they know how to run society, and, worse, for us to believe that they do? What an obscene equivalence.
Deny transferability; take away expert titles or add descriptors to them. Flaunting someone as an expert is a cheap trick of persuasion. Call someone by their name, call them an informed member, call them a research scientist; do not grant expertise so easily, especially to any other field their expertise does not strictly belong to. I would still rather hear from a League of Legends expert more than an epidemiologist on societal issues in a pandemic, especially because we could take the opinion with the grain of salt it should be served with. I have not used my imagination in this example: one of the most notable commenters on the pandemic is Eric Feigl-Ding, a nutritionist. Our reputable Thackeray expert, in order to use such a title, must make a claim about Thackeray or something very close in surround. Otherwise, call him Robert A. Colby.
An expert is fallible
Even if an expert were to make a claim related to their limited area of expertise, their word is still never infallible. Identifying as an expert seems to be a quick attempt to overcome complexity and natural uncertainty. Nevertheless, the complexity remains, and we trick ourselves into believing any individual has struck anything resembling omniscience and done anything with the complexity other than ignore it. Burgis writes,“In a world as complex as ours, no single person has access to all of the knowledge they need to make the most ‘informed’ decisions possible, so the experts tell us that we must rely on them for all things.” If we agree that no person can know everything, why do we think that experts can? Experts are people after all, and if people are fallible, experts are too.
I have been especially taken by the assertion of infallible experts in the scientific domain. There is a popular line of reasoning circulating that to be so daring as counter experts is to counter ‘science’, counter the progress of man, counter celestial truth. Somehow this accusation is meant as an insult, when in reality it is should be taken as a great compliment; the assurance of the most authentic carrying out of the subject of which one is capable. For, countering science is science, countering science is a scientific activity. Such a back-and-forth lies at the heart of the scientific method and the accumulation of knowledge: you may be right, I may be right, but together we might get closer to the truth. Our experts say: here is the truth and I am right.
When someone is honestly 55% right, that’s very good and there’s no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it’s wonderful, it’s great luck, and let him thank God. But what’s to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? Whoever says he’s 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal.
An Old Jew of Galicia via Czeslaw Milosz
Karl Popper takes the logic of the scientific method (perhaps too far) to the point that no scientific claim is valid in absence of the opportunity to challenge said scientific claims. To Popper, a man isolated on an island could never be correct in any, can never have any theories, prepositions, verified. Well, if Popper knew this man were simply an expert, would he have dropped this claim? Almost assuredly not; in all likelihood Popper would have only intensified the claim, under concern that an expert might be more likely to make—and believe—claims upon things which they are not fully certain than those who are do not claim to be an expert in the first place.
Mark Twain famously claimed that an expert was “an ordinary fellow from another town.” Let there be experts, but do not let there be infallible experts. And most importantly, let us know what town they are from.
If experts had to identify what field they were experts in (scope) and what field they were commenting on (domain), our jobs of separating signal from the noise would be easier. The signal is the one instance where the requirements of both scope and domain are satisfied (A. below).
A. Thackeray expert on Thackeray says: Satisfies both scope and domain.
B. Thackeray expert on organization of society says: Satisfies scope, fails domain.
C. Biology expert on bacteria: Fails scope, satisfies domain.
D. Biology expert on public health: Fails both scope and domain.
We should not distill all of the above formations, as is currently the practice, from: [z expert says z, where z should be approximately equal to z] to [Experts say y]. I had been preparing to make a fancy collage of headlines containing the term ‘experts say’ we so now despise, though the task became futile when I came across the following absurd article:
‘Unconfirmed cougar sighting no reason for alarm, experts say.’ What experts? Is this our honourable Thackeray expert again? Why can be I be an expert on picking lint out of my belly button (the angle of the scoop is the key), and likewise be approved to comment on the general political functioning of a democratic country or the appearance of what looks very much like a cougar under this same auspicious title? Experts: Declare your allegiance, declare your expertise! Lay your claim, announce your qualifications! Everyone else: experts are only experts if you take them to be. Make any who claims the title of expert deserving of the name.
Through this discussion I have meant to suppress our collective gawking over experts. Let us no longer be blindly convinced of any argument by the mere mention of an expert. Let us hold experts, their expertise, and those who ask us to trust that expertise more accountable. This position is not against knowledge; it is against certainty. This position is not against science; it is against dogma. And it’s not against individual opinion either, it is instead against the denial of reasonable debate. Yes, this position is not against expertise, it is against experts and all those that kneel before them.
To sum, being an expert in one area not mean by consequence being an expert in all areas, nor does it really even mean an expert in that initial area, nor does it mean what they believe is even assuredly correct. Let us conclude by taking up the exercise we started with in full. When a judge orders they carry out a legislated, appointed, protected duty; a right and responsibility of exclusive belonging to them. There is no judge order that counters the order of another judge (a higher court supersedes). An expert, on the other hand, is a self and peer-ascribed title of unknown origin that is often undeserved, and whose word carries no inherent power other than that it is uttered by this appointed expert. “We are told to trust the experts” says Burgis, “because they have certain credentials or have been cited by other experts.” The expert is not a judge, and their words are not orders.
What an expert says, anyone else can say too. If we stopped blindly believing experts who falsely speak with the authority of a judge and claim to have conquered impossible degrees of complexity, and instead weighed the opinions of many informed individuals who recognize they might be right as well as wrong, we might have a chance at making good decisions. While there are opinions we can safely ascribe to the expertise of experts, there is no opinion that should ever be completely protected from questioning, that itself could not benefit from a degree of doubt.
I referenced that the difference between two sentences we began with constituted a difference material to our society. Democracy denies the fact that there are experts. Democracy inherently believes that we are all equal in our expertise, and especially lack thereof, and that collectively we might make, and re-make, and re-make decisions with better success than a single expert could alone. Our votes all count the same —under our obedience to experts, should they not receive two, three, ten votes, for every non-expert? No, for the same reason of why we should not treat experts like Gods among men. Experts are merely men among men.
In all, by attempting to defend our society against from the natural fallibility of the individuals that form it, we only transfer this fallibility to a smaller subset of individuals and deny the rest of agency. Experts, if you don’t believe that individuals have the rational capability to act in their own interest, why not leave us alone? Instead, we shroud and allow ourselves to be shrouded with the blanket of the expert, and in this attempted act of protected only accomplish smothering our society with the blanket of the expert, a veil of darkness.
The blanket of the expert is a veil of darkness. Or so I believe, for I am no expert on the matter.
