The pain of the expert

A recurring theme in the open space of the web is the death of expert authority, a dislike of expert opinion in a world awash with social media.

It can be painful to see how a highly educated expert grapples with the subject, trying to make a case for listening to and heeding what experts tell us.

The most painful aspect comes to light when we get to see genuine doubt by experts, when mistakes made by experts are acknowledged in a serious way. No, egregious mistakes and errors of judgement are not being acknowledged in a statement like "when experts make mistakes they fail spectacularly" because we believe that spectacular failure is the wrong term, and disaster is generally more accurate.

It does not help the case if the Dunning-Kruger effect is invoked in defense of experts in a slightly incorrect way. "The dumb are those most convinced they are right" is a little off, unless - maybe - you include smart people in the "dumb" group.

The latter is what we are doing frequently on this blog, but it does not seem to be how the defense of experts interprets it. The common examples of the benefits of expertise are the doctor and the car mechanic. Easily understood, doctors generally beat faith healers, and car mechanics fix that most precious object of modern life, the motor vehicle.

Yet, both examples can be used to show why we, including the writer of this post, often fail "to value expertise".

How so?

Because just a few generations ago, almost all medical doctors in the Western world were no better than faith healers today. Arab doctors in Spain were, as far as we can tell, light years ahead of their faith driven Christian colleagues. Sure, we should give 21st century medicine more credit than earlier doctors. At the same time, incompetent doctors exist today, too.

And the engineering PhD at your local university has arguably better credentials than car mechanics, yet you are not likely to take your car to the engineering department for an oil change.

Complaints about disrespect towards experts at times also obscure that older experts have a low opinion of young people who are not bona fide child prodigies.
An indicator of distrust of young people is that many modern experts use a reversal of the don't trust anybody over 30 slogan from the 1960s: don't trust anybody under thirty.

On social media, many a credentialed expert is rightly upset about aggressive or plain wrong tweets aimed at them. This is another dilemma of every human: you expect to be treated in accordance with your self-view or the views of your peers. On Twitter or Facebook, a full list of academic titles or chairmanships tend to express these expectations.

But they don't protect you against yourself.

At the end of the day, communication becomes a matter of the frame of reference we emphasize so frequently on these pages.

To the expert in national security, it may be perfectly fine to call Edward Snowden's Channel 4 UK Christmas address "Ed's bumptiously self-important" while letting HM The Queen's address go without comment.

To be sure, we liked the Queen's address, we liked Mr. Snowden's too. Each from its own frame of reference.

As to disrespect shown to experts, does it really matter all that much? You make good money, right? People pay you well for speaking for half an hour or so. Which means, like the blogster here, you are complaining from a comfortable position.

We do feel your pain, though. Getting old and irrelevant happens automatically, but that does not make it any easier.