Reddit reviews The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters

This is a great question that I have thought about a million times. I have actually spent a lot of time trying to find a book on it, but I have not come across one that is specifically about Sociology or Psychology.

I first started to think about this when I was getting my masters degree (in Sociology). Often times I was super excited to share the things I would learn with my family and friends, and how the things I was (and still am) learning are often in contradiction to the things I was told/learned growing up. For context, I'm a white girl who grew up in an upper-middle class politically conservative suburb in a large city with successful parents, and I was always given everything I wanted/needed. I considered myself a Christian and I told people that I was a republican (although I knew nothing about politics and was just identifying with my parents).

Then I started studying Soci and my entire perspective on the world changed. It opened my eyes and forced me to look beyond my tunnel vision of society. It was really hard at times to come to terms with things that I thought I already understood, especially social issues that I had never thought about before or issues that had always been presented to me in a one-sided, biased manner.

A good example of this is the trope of the Welfare Queen. I was told that poor people, esp. poor black people, were moochers and only wanted handouts because they were lazy and didn't want to get a job. Of course, I learned that the Welfare Queen (and welfare "fraud") is a myth that was promulgated by Ronald Regan in order to stigmatize people in poverty so that he could convince Americans that rolling back the social safety net was justified because it was only being used by poor black (read: undeserving) citizens. The truth is that most people on welfare do have jobs (i.e. the 'working poor'). Also, the welfare reforms of 1996 created a 5-year maximum lifetime cap on benefits so that welfare "cheaters" (which did not exist anywhere near the level that we're often told) were literally unable to collect benefits for life (also, contrary to popular opinion, women do not have more babies to get more benefits. In fact, if a woman has a child while receiving benefits, she and her family will be removed from the rolls). Welfare is probably one of the least understood/mischaracterized social issue in American society.

Science in general is often met with the sting of anti-intellectualism, which is part of the answer to your question. However, I think social science in particular gets it worse than the 'natural' sciences like Biology and Chemistry. I used to say that it was because people were generally more suspect of social sciences, but I think it's more than that. People like to dismiss facts about social issues that they don't agree with or have a different view on because it's much easier to disagree that we live in a post-racial society (we don't) than it is to disagree on the functions of bodily organs. People also tend to conflate their individual life experiences with overall reality (i.e. "well, i've never experienced [blank] so it must not be true or its exaggerated" or "well, I know someone who is [blank] but [blank] doesn't happen to them"). You get what I am saying here? Most people don't question or critically think about social norms or commonsense 'truths' because these 'truths' are so embedded in our milieu that its hard to imagine otherwise. So instead of thinking critically, people dismiss sociological knowledge as either "elitist" or "not real science" so that they can remain undisturbed in their own little worlds.

Once I saw a question on r/askreddit that asked what the slogan of your college major or job would be. I would say, "Sociology: reminding people of uncomfortable truths since 1838" or "Sociology: everything you were taught about society was a big lie" lol.

I'm sorry I can't find any literature for you, but I can recommend these instead:

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters.

Congrats on being a big part of the reason why this book was published.

The degree thing is interesting... I just recently read a book (The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols; https://www.amazon.com/Death-Expertise-Campaign-Established-Knowledge/dp/0190469412) which, among many topics, touches on the subject of how with the massive explosion of degrees and the fact that as college degrees have become more and more widespread, the value of the degrees diminishes. The author postulates that college was not necessarily meant to be the egalitarian thing that it has become and... honestly, I can't disagree with him.

And the downside of it all is that you have many who enter degree programs that are not well positioned to the modern workforce or (worse) folks who enter college when perhaps college was not the best course of action for them. We need to start encouraging more younger folks to look at the trades and other forms of employment... I think they often get overlooked and I know they were even 10 or so years ago go when I graduated high school.

If I may make a recommendation, read The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols. It explains why a yahoo with a computer who’s been in Florida a few days thinks he knows better than a multi billion dollar company, its suppliers and a veritable army of engineers and (actual) experts.

But does that get to the issue with Democracy?

*Note: I agree that the best system of governance is Democracy, but it is still a system created by humans, who have flaws, and no system is perfect*

The fundamental premise of Democracy is that an informed public will make the right choice on how to govern themselves. It assumes that the issues of the day do not invoke emotions, and that people are rational actors. So, like in Economics, there are fundamental assumptions on the theories that in reality are not true.

Another problem is, like you said, the death of debate. I would point you to the book "The Death of Expertise" which goes into how people seem to dismiss, if not outright question and delegitimize, educated professionals doing what they are trained to do. And, the Republican party especially, want to cast doubt on all research on climate change for the Gas & Oil company's benefits. So it's in their benefit to delegitimize them, but in doing so makes everyone question experts. I'm not saying no one should ever question experts, but I constantly hear this "Those researchers are just trying to get grant money." Which 1) is not how the grant approval process works and 2) is ignoring the massive amount of profit Oil companies makes and how anything that could jeopardize their money making scheme would be viewed as a threat. Now, that's just climate change. But think of flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, etc.

Also, on your theme of death of debate, what we call debates are not even debates. Take Ben Shapiro as an example, now he is educated but he also uses certain tactics that make an idea sound logical, when, in some cases, they are not. Now, it's not even about debate to find an ultimate truth and the best solution forward. No, it's about VICTORY. Well, how can you defeat someone if you feel that person is entitled to their position, whether that is on the battlefield, sports field, or in politics.

AND even more, we need less educated people because someone needs to dig ditches. So how do you educate people enough to be an informed public but don't dilute the value of an education? (because if everyone can be a doctor or lawyer, it wouldn't be worth much.)

So yeah, that's the flaw with Democracy. We are a large amount of people, with varying educational backgrounds, trying to understand something as unique and complicated like government, but elect people because they "keep it simple". We're fucked.

Does your dad read? The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols, who's a conservative, got some conservative family members to stop watching Fox News. They still have terrible political views but it's warded off the more serious forms of brain worms.

the key isnt that the normal folk like you and me should pay more.

The top 1-2% pay jackshit compared to the rest of us.

have stocks? they pay even less.

> Traditional classroom Education is meaningless for these people. Teach them a TRADE, something worth while.

100% totally agree! https://www.amazon.com/Death-Expertise-Campaign-Established-Knowledge/dp/0190469412

this is a great read. he actually talks about how college has become a money making scheme more than a concerned about education.

You might enjoy The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols. He goes over that exact same issue. Check out his AMA. Follow him on twitter if you want the perspective of a sane, snarky, conservative.

You check it against sources written by people that have expertise in the subject. Real expertise. Right now we are in the world of the internet where everyone thinks they know everything and garbage gets passed around. The Death of Expertise.

Check out this book: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Expertise-Campaign-Established-Knowledge/dp/0190469412
Society is quickly evolving to not trust real information, but somehow we feel like crowd sourcing some randos killing time on reddit is trustworthy. /shrug/

nods wisely

Read "The Death of Expertise":

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Expertise-Campaign-Established-Knowledge/dp/0190469412

Tom Nichols (GOP ALERT 🚨) wrote a book on this. Its pretty decent and he's given some good interviews about it:

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Expertise-Campaign-Established-Knowledge/dp/0190469412

Jason Stanley, a Philosophy professor at Yale, has two recent books that might be of interest: How Propaganda Works, and How Fascism Works. Depending on how broadly you want to define "philosophy", US Naval War College professor Tom Nichols's book, The Death of Expertise, would also be fit the bill. The ideas in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by NYU ethics/business professor Jonathan Haidt also come up frequently in conversation.

If you're willing to look further back (and perhaps define philosophy even more broadly), the late NYU education professor Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business might be of interest.

Not sure this is really an ELI5 question, but.... check this book out.

Submission Statement: How Universities have been part of the problem and how they can be part of the solution to America's Civic Crises.

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>The United States has seen great increases in how many of us take part in higher education. The percent of Americans who’ve completed four years or more of college has grown nearly sevenfold  just since 1940. Illiteracy rates have plummeted. We have even seen consistent growth in Americans’ average IQ, the so-called “Flynn Effect” from the 1930s through the early 21st century. In addition, people have access to information on a scale hitherto unknown in human history, available in the palm of their hand, whenever and wherever they’d like.
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>Yet levels of political and civic ignorance have remained astonishingly stable since the 1930s (when mass survey research really kicked off). We also see increasing governmental dysfunction. Increased political and cultural polarization. A general breakdown in civil society and civil discourse. Growing distrust in major social institutions – with particularly pronounced polarization around universities, expertise, and the media. We see declining trust in one another. People are increasingly reluctant to marry, date, or even befriend or live next to those who hold different socio-political views from themselves.

https://youtu.be/sg6lk6RYuEU?t=1m2s

I encourage you to read his book, it's made just for you.

you are confusing correlation and causation. There are such things as low-e windows which block heat transfer. You are also ignoring the inconsistent yellowing patterns. If it was strictly heat then the picture I showed you would make no sense. You are basing your entire premise on anecdotal first hand accounts, not evidence or science. You need to read how BFR's work, what Bromine is reactive with and what redox reactions are. You should also read this

What about Congress people who's districts include a lot of people who work in financial services? What about taking into account the views of people who have more than a cursory and often times incorrect understanding of corporate finance and government regulations? This book I picked up is becoming more relevant with each passing month: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Expertise-Campaign-Established-Knowledge/dp/0190469412