Lack of knowledge
A continuing and disturbing trend in the United States is disregard for expert opinion. Or at least equating what an expert says with what a reporter says or your neighbor. The idea that all opinion is the same, typically when an expert talks about their field of expertise it is not really their opinion, its the most likely outcome. Certainly the bona fides of some “experts” should be called into question. An expert in dinosaur bones should not be on TV talking about plastic recycling. A healthy skepticism that leads the curious to dig a little deeper is a good thing.
Now, however we are not seeing skepticism, we see a cynical arrogance. If an expert does not agree with someone’s opinion, they must be full of it. I mean we are an informed public right? This belief, that common sense or faith or intuition can somehow guide a person through difficult or complex issues just as well as high levels of education and years of professional experience. Its not true, sorry but its not. Ever try to do regression analysis for a 200 apples sprayed with pesticide or derive how much pollution tax should be put on 5 power plants in different cities? You can’t guess that stuff, or look it up on a blog.
A person who takes an Economics course, or Statistics, Engineering, Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and on and on will tell you flat out, you cannot use ‘common sense’ to understand anything beyond the most rudimentary, and in fact, “common” things. If you did not study, you would fail these subjects, miserably. Why? Well this is not the Middle Ages, most fields are very well developed and require critical skills, analysis and formula or logic that everyday in the 9 to 5 does not. A whole lot of really smart people have combined to make this modern world what it is today. This is why a person must LEARN a field, they cannot guess it.
Yet when it comes to administering a town or city our country, a portfolio with billions in assets or a company with offices in 5 countries, we think people with everyday experience can do just fine. Its absurd. Look around, why are bridges collapsing, homes being washed away and the economy staggering spectacularly? Because the idea that you really don’t need experts has taken hold. The cities structural engineers are telling the city council that they need more money, the bridges are falling into disrepair. The council ignores them, with the public’s blessing; they just have their hand out, sucking off the tit of public funding. Two years later a major bridge collapses killing dozens. Hmm, maybe those structural engineers actually knew what they were talking about!
While a welder or stock broker is a valuable asset in any society they do not replace the architect, engineer or economist. Investors and brokers ignored Warren Buffet who for years had called derivatives trading a ‘time bomb’, now only 2 Wall Street firms with large derivative portfolios exist. School boards ignore overwhelming evidence of natural selection and try to force “intelligent design” into the curriculum as some kind of reasonable alternative. A conservative court justice rules against this policy calling it a gross violation of authority and contrary to the very concept of education. Arrogance and lack of knowledge power both of these examples.
Welders do not draft the blueprints any more than the building architect welds the girders. If the architect was welding the girders, that’s one building I would never go in. I want competent and certified people doing the work and educated people doing the design. Think of it, if a chemist was suddenly called upon to run a lathe for the aluminum fabrication facility they would be awful, wrecking valuable material and wasting money and time in the process. Of course, unless the chemist was an egotist, they would tell you that, freely volunteering the limits of their capability and knowledge. Maybe the fact that the chemist would freely admit this should tell you something. The myth of the superhero is just that, a myth, perhaps its time to listen to those who really do know what they are talking about.
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