I think part of the problem is that people don't know what they're an expert in.
Imagine a CEO of a car company. Does know a lot about manufacturing cars? Maybe. But maybe he's just an expert in politicking is way to the top of an organization.
Or your example about education professors. Maybe they know a lot about education (sign point to "no"). But maybe they're an expert in saying the right things to get their papers cited by their peers
Excellent point! And conversely, sometimes the person with the best ideas is an outsider, who lacks the preconceptions that lead to bad decisions. Zeynap Tufecki is my favorite example. She is a sociologist, but she consistently had the smartest ideas for what to do during the pandemic. She was one of the first and most forceful advocates of ventilation, and she recommended rapid-testing as a way to open up everything safely before we had vaccines. Epidemiologists we’re so focused on the virus that the didn’t pay as much attention to the social implications of what they were recommending.
Just finished David Wooton's "The Invention of Science" which spends a bit talking about how, prior to the 16th century, there wasn't really even the concept of "fact" the way we think of it now in the context of science. Expert and authority were one and the same. He spends a bit too much time defending science from Wittgenstein (all points of view are social constructs and equally valid, including scientific facts, etc.) and the book is overall too long. But the first few chapters are great, recommended.
People were both surprised and annoyed at me back in the 90's when I was skeptical of anthropogenic global warming. As a scientist/chemist I was supposed to be "on board" from day one. But I found the literature at the time poorly presented, and couldn't seem to find the facts, other than "well, the atmospheric experts say it's so, so we should believe them!" I can recognize an accelerating bandwagon when I see one. But skepticism only means I'm not yet convinced, and would like to review the data. That bandwagon turned out to be true (that happens!) but that doesn't excuse the multitudes who made their decisions pro or con without having any idea about what the experts were talking about.
This is an excellent point, and I particularly appreciate that you are using as your example one of my sacred cows, climate change. Even those issues that are most important to us politically, ethically, spiritually, and what have you, need to be subject to testing and the scientific method. We should be worrying about climate change because the evidence shows it’s happening, and not because people we like and respect say it is.
Enjoyed this very much. Do you happen to have noticed that intellectual humility also seems to decrease anger and contempt for those who believe things that you don't? I know that's a leading question, but it certainly had that effect on me. It seems to improve one's overall well-being.
Yes! Thank you for bringing this up! I have indeed noticed this! Or, put another way, intellectual humility turns disagreements into opportunities for learning.
A smart column--The NY Times just had a front-page story on how drinking any amount of alcohol is bad because it increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc. I pulled up the studies they referred to, which did not prove that. The studies showed that excessive alcohol use increases the risk for a myriad of health problems. This was a front-page story that was essentially fearmongering. It bothers me because overhyping results to make dramatic claims leads people to doubt "expert" opinion about health care, which we saw too much of during Covid. That kind of fear mongering also makes people feel bad. I care about this particular issue because when I hear arguments about the dangers of drinking any alcohol at all I worry that I gave myself breast cancer by having wine with dinner a few nights every week. I know that's nonsense, and yet. Health education by press release or articles in major newspapers is not good health care.
On a lighter note, I had to laugh at your description of The NY Times recipe columns and the responses to them. People seem to glory in saying how they changed the recipes to make them better. I find the impulse to do that odd, but I guess it's harmless, and it can be fun to read others' recipe ingenuity.
I saw that article too, and it was so ridiculous that I almost had to laugh. NO amount of alcohol is safe?! It’s not cyanide! I think public health experts want to be extra-strict, “just in case.” So if overuse of alcohol is bad (which no one disputes), then they decide to tell everyone that any use at all is bad too (which strikes most people as ridiculous). But being “extra careful just in case” has its own downsides. I hadn’t even thought about how victim-blaming it would feel to cancer patients. ☹️
Alcohol--it's not cyanide! Brilliant. With three words you have helped me feel so much better about my occasional glass of wine, or nice cold beer in the summer. Maybe even a glass of bubbly--or two--for celebrating.
What I find remarkable, among my university colleagues, is a lack of skepticism coupled with a reflexive fealty to the argument from authority. As a recovering Catholic, this looks to me a whole lot like faith. The church decrees that certain things are true, therefore they are true. And it's simply inappropriate and bothersome for anyone to raise questions. In the olden days, it would be very dangerous to raise questions.
They would say it's about "trusting the science", but they're not "doing" science, which would necessarily involve skepticism especially when considering something extremely complex that has enormous political dimensions, such as theories of anthropogenic climate change effects.
What must be happening is that they work backwards from political policies or solutions that they prefer. You start from how you want things to be, and then seek ways to justify the actions necessary to achieve that. I think that's pretty much exactly how religion works.
It's true that I have been a sort of habitual contrarian and skeptic since about 5th grade, but I'm surprised that there aren't more people like me in academia.
Yup. Academia, and especially the sciences, should be the place where people are most likely to question, not most deferential to, authority. It is dangerous to refuse to question a given idea because we find it uncomfortable.
Even the example of ulcers fits this model: It took a ridiculously long time to change the standard treatment, because everyone--not just doctors--found the narrative of pain caused by stress and overindulgence to be so compelling.
Hi Mari, kudos to you for yet another brillant and very informative Happy Wanderer. I don't know if you would put academics in the same category as "experts", but I have a big beef with people who write books, hold talks (or both) or just people I worked with in new jobs and are incapable of formulating what they do, or else what their thoughts or theories are in a few simple, understandable sentences that laics might also understand. I have posed this "academics test" a few times and so many people sadly fail, thus proving-at least to me-to me that they don't really know what they are talking about.
A feedback about education in the US: a high school math teacher I know recently shared that at her school, they tested the math skills and that some kids had only 4th or 5th grade level skills (!!!) I would also advocate music as one of the subjects that should be mandatory, aside from the hands-on things. It is downright tragic to see young people nowasays who can't do anything unless they have a button to push.... and they don't even know how to think of or come up with any alternatives.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment! I completely agree that music is something all kids should learn--even just singing together has so many benefits. And as an escapee from a graduate program in English, I couldn’t agree more with you that the academic writing style is deliberately obscure and confusing. Sometimes I think these writers write so opaquely to hide that they don’t have much to say!
It’s a complicated subject with many aspects. you have the fall of middlebrow culture (book-of-the-Month club, Columbia record club, etc). Tom Wolfe wrote about this insightfully in his collection “hooking up.” it used to be that at a school like Williams, the English professors knew most of the students were going to become doctors lawyers and bankers. But they thought the life of a doctor etc. is better if that doctor has read a little Shakespeare or Wallace Stevens.
subsequent to that you have the rise of “Theory.” This is based on professional insecurity and “science envy”: the idea that literary criticism should be a science -- which of course it can and should never be. also the bottom of the job market falling out. so as a reaction to professional insecurity, People need to wear priestly vestments to show that they are members of an elite guild. except instead of vestments its language -- as a badge of tribal inclusion.
I think part of the problem is that people don't know what they're an expert in.
Imagine a CEO of a car company. Does know a lot about manufacturing cars? Maybe. But maybe he's just an expert in politicking is way to the top of an organization.
Or your example about education professors. Maybe they know a lot about education (sign point to "no"). But maybe they're an expert in saying the right things to get their papers cited by their peers
Excellent point! And conversely, sometimes the person with the best ideas is an outsider, who lacks the preconceptions that lead to bad decisions. Zeynap Tufecki is my favorite example. She is a sociologist, but she consistently had the smartest ideas for what to do during the pandemic. She was one of the first and most forceful advocates of ventilation, and she recommended rapid-testing as a way to open up everything safely before we had vaccines. Epidemiologists we’re so focused on the virus that the didn’t pay as much attention to the social implications of what they were recommending.
Socrates is the hero here, of course!
And Savion Glover and Temple Grandin. My kind of expert panel
I want to read Grandin’s new book!
Just finished David Wooton's "The Invention of Science" which spends a bit talking about how, prior to the 16th century, there wasn't really even the concept of "fact" the way we think of it now in the context of science. Expert and authority were one and the same. He spends a bit too much time defending science from Wittgenstein (all points of view are social constructs and equally valid, including scientific facts, etc.) and the book is overall too long. But the first few chapters are great, recommended.
People were both surprised and annoyed at me back in the 90's when I was skeptical of anthropogenic global warming. As a scientist/chemist I was supposed to be "on board" from day one. But I found the literature at the time poorly presented, and couldn't seem to find the facts, other than "well, the atmospheric experts say it's so, so we should believe them!" I can recognize an accelerating bandwagon when I see one. But skepticism only means I'm not yet convinced, and would like to review the data. That bandwagon turned out to be true (that happens!) but that doesn't excuse the multitudes who made their decisions pro or con without having any idea about what the experts were talking about.
This is an excellent point, and I particularly appreciate that you are using as your example one of my sacred cows, climate change. Even those issues that are most important to us politically, ethically, spiritually, and what have you, need to be subject to testing and the scientific method. We should be worrying about climate change because the evidence shows it’s happening, and not because people we like and respect say it is.
Enjoyed this very much. Do you happen to have noticed that intellectual humility also seems to decrease anger and contempt for those who believe things that you don't? I know that's a leading question, but it certainly had that effect on me. It seems to improve one's overall well-being.
Yes! Thank you for bringing this up! I have indeed noticed this! Or, put another way, intellectual humility turns disagreements into opportunities for learning.
A smart column--The NY Times just had a front-page story on how drinking any amount of alcohol is bad because it increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc. I pulled up the studies they referred to, which did not prove that. The studies showed that excessive alcohol use increases the risk for a myriad of health problems. This was a front-page story that was essentially fearmongering. It bothers me because overhyping results to make dramatic claims leads people to doubt "expert" opinion about health care, which we saw too much of during Covid. That kind of fear mongering also makes people feel bad. I care about this particular issue because when I hear arguments about the dangers of drinking any alcohol at all I worry that I gave myself breast cancer by having wine with dinner a few nights every week. I know that's nonsense, and yet. Health education by press release or articles in major newspapers is not good health care.
On a lighter note, I had to laugh at your description of The NY Times recipe columns and the responses to them. People seem to glory in saying how they changed the recipes to make them better. I find the impulse to do that odd, but I guess it's harmless, and it can be fun to read others' recipe ingenuity.
I saw that article too, and it was so ridiculous that I almost had to laugh. NO amount of alcohol is safe?! It’s not cyanide! I think public health experts want to be extra-strict, “just in case.” So if overuse of alcohol is bad (which no one disputes), then they decide to tell everyone that any use at all is bad too (which strikes most people as ridiculous). But being “extra careful just in case” has its own downsides. I hadn’t even thought about how victim-blaming it would feel to cancer patients. ☹️
Alcohol--it's not cyanide! Brilliant. With three words you have helped me feel so much better about my occasional glass of wine, or nice cold beer in the summer. Maybe even a glass of bubbly--or two--for celebrating.
The bit about recipes is so true!!!
I laugh every time! I want to say, People! Why do you even subscribe?! Just try the recipe as written!
I’ve made it a form of personal protest to comment whenever I make the recipe as written, to that effect. It was DELICIOUS, you rubes!!
What I find remarkable, among my university colleagues, is a lack of skepticism coupled with a reflexive fealty to the argument from authority. As a recovering Catholic, this looks to me a whole lot like faith. The church decrees that certain things are true, therefore they are true. And it's simply inappropriate and bothersome for anyone to raise questions. In the olden days, it would be very dangerous to raise questions.
They would say it's about "trusting the science", but they're not "doing" science, which would necessarily involve skepticism especially when considering something extremely complex that has enormous political dimensions, such as theories of anthropogenic climate change effects.
What must be happening is that they work backwards from political policies or solutions that they prefer. You start from how you want things to be, and then seek ways to justify the actions necessary to achieve that. I think that's pretty much exactly how religion works.
It's true that I have been a sort of habitual contrarian and skeptic since about 5th grade, but I'm surprised that there aren't more people like me in academia.
Yup. Academia, and especially the sciences, should be the place where people are most likely to question, not most deferential to, authority. It is dangerous to refuse to question a given idea because we find it uncomfortable.
Even the example of ulcers fits this model: It took a ridiculously long time to change the standard treatment, because everyone--not just doctors--found the narrative of pain caused by stress and overindulgence to be so compelling.
Hi Mari, kudos to you for yet another brillant and very informative Happy Wanderer. I don't know if you would put academics in the same category as "experts", but I have a big beef with people who write books, hold talks (or both) or just people I worked with in new jobs and are incapable of formulating what they do, or else what their thoughts or theories are in a few simple, understandable sentences that laics might also understand. I have posed this "academics test" a few times and so many people sadly fail, thus proving-at least to me-to me that they don't really know what they are talking about.
A feedback about education in the US: a high school math teacher I know recently shared that at her school, they tested the math skills and that some kids had only 4th or 5th grade level skills (!!!) I would also advocate music as one of the subjects that should be mandatory, aside from the hands-on things. It is downright tragic to see young people nowasays who can't do anything unless they have a button to push.... and they don't even know how to think of or come up with any alternatives.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment! I completely agree that music is something all kids should learn--even just singing together has so many benefits. And as an escapee from a graduate program in English, I couldn’t agree more with you that the academic writing style is deliberately obscure and confusing. Sometimes I think these writers write so opaquely to hide that they don’t have much to say!
It’s a complicated subject with many aspects. you have the fall of middlebrow culture (book-of-the-Month club, Columbia record club, etc). Tom Wolfe wrote about this insightfully in his collection “hooking up.” it used to be that at a school like Williams, the English professors knew most of the students were going to become doctors lawyers and bankers. But they thought the life of a doctor etc. is better if that doctor has read a little Shakespeare or Wallace Stevens.
subsequent to that you have the rise of “Theory.” This is based on professional insecurity and “science envy”: the idea that literary criticism should be a science -- which of course it can and should never be. also the bottom of the job market falling out. so as a reaction to professional insecurity, People need to wear priestly vestments to show that they are members of an elite guild. except instead of vestments its language -- as a badge of tribal inclusion.
By job market I of course mean the academic job market