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

by Tom Nichols

Sometimes, the remedy for expert failure is the time-honored blue-ribbon panel and its recommendations. Sometimes the answer is just to fire somebody. In his seminal work on expertise, however, Philip Tetlock suggests other ways in which experts might be held more accountable without merely trashing the entire relationship between experts and the public. There are many possibilities, including more transparency and competition, including institutions requiring experts in any field not only to maintain a complete record of their work, but to come clean about how often they were right or wrong. Journals, universities, and other gatekeepers can and should hold their peers responsible more often for mistakes. Whether this would work is another matter—for one thing, “right” and “wrong” are often more complicated conclusions than a straight yes-or-no determination—and Tetlock acknowledges the many barriers to such solutions.