The Crisis of Expertise

by Gil Eyal

Ultimately, with the Trump Administration, the attacks on “phony experts” became a full-fledged “assault on science,” as declared by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS): the hostile takeover of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the gagging of its experts; the retreat from the Paris Climate accords; the decision by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt not to ban the pesticide Chlorpyrifos despite the contrary recommendation by the Agency's own Science Advisory Panel; the revoking or delaying of health and environmental protections based on scientific research (the Methane decision, the stream protection rule); the “transparency rule” attacking so-called “secret science”