The Weaponization of Expertise

The problem with expertise-and the dark side of the equation "knowledge = power."

The problem with expertise-and the dark side of the equation "knowledge = power."

Experts are not infallible. Treating them as such has done us all a grave disservice-and, as The Tragedy of Expertise makes painfully clear, given rise to the very populism that all-knowing experts and their elite coterie decry. Jacob Hale Russell and Dennis Patterson use the devastating example of the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate their case, revealing how the hubris of all-too-human experts undermined-perhaps irreparably-public faith in elite policymaking. Paradoxically, by turning science into dogmatism, the overweening elite response has also proved deeply corrosive of expertise itself-in effect, doing exactly what elite policymakers accuse their critics of doing.

A much-needed corrective to a dangerous blind faith in expertise, The Tragedy of Expertise identifies a cluster of pathologies that have enveloped many institutions meant to help referee expert knowledge, in particular a disavowal of the doubt, uncertainty, and counterarguments that are crucial to the accumulation of knowledge. At a time when trust in expertise and faith in institutions are most needed and most lacking, this work issues a stark reminder that a crisis of misinformation may well begin at the top.