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

by Thomas M. Nichols

To take a less rarified example, a young woman in 2013 took to social media for help with a class assignment. (Where she lives or where she was studying is unclear, but she described herself as a future doctor.) She apparently was tasked with researching the deadly chemical substance Sarin, and, as she explained to thousands on Twitter, she needed help because she had to watch her child while doing her assignment. In minutes, her request was answered by Dan Kaszeta, the director of a security consulting firm in London and a top expert in the field of chemical weapons, who volunteered to help her. What happened next transfixed many readers. (Jeffrey Lewis, an arms expert in California, captured and posted the exchange online.) “I can’t find the chemical and physical properties of sarin gas [sic] someone please help me,” the student tweeted. Kaszeta offered his help. He corrected her by noting that Sarin isn’t a gas and that the word should be capitalized. As Lewis later wryly noted, “Dan’s help [met] with a welcome sigh of relief from our beleaguered student.” Actually, it met with a string of expletives. The student lectured the expert in a gale-force storm of outraged ego: “yes the [expletive] it is a gas you ignorant [expletive]. sarin is a liquid & can evaporate … shut the [expletive] up.” Kaszeta, clearly stunned, tried one more time: “Google me. I’m an expert on Sarin. Sorry for offering to help.” Things did not improve before the exchange finally ended. One smug Dart...