The Death Of Expertise

The author's focus in the article is on the layman's resentment for the expert. While most people would agree that experts are better qualified to talk about something than Joe Blogger, I think the urge to disagree with the expert is engendered by the larger power structure of expertise that has grown up over the past 100 years.

To take a trivial example, I wear contact lenses. While I agree that an optometrist knows a lot more about vision correction than I do, I resent the fact that I have to pay a lot of money to sit in a chair in a dark room and wait for The Expert to deliver his Opinion about whether I need the -4.5's or -5's.

The author of the article feels like he is the victim of resentment at the hands of his students (references to "intellectual valet" and so forth). I don't think students are necessarily in the wrong -- most are probably in college to get a job, and they're right to resent the stranglehold that universities have on social prestige and career respectability. They end up taking it out on the professors, because, well, they're stuck in class listening to The Expert for hours a day because of this or that degree requirement.

The experts then start to resent the laymen for failing to pay what they feel is a proper amount of respect for the superior state of their knowledge. They conclude that the solution is to come up with ways to enhance their prestige even more, for example by writing articles like this one that talks about how great experts are. I'm afraid this will only poison relations between laymen and experts even more.

What I love about computer programming is that basically all you need to be an expert on something is time, persistence, and an Internet connection. Contrary to the author's claims, the alternative to institutionalized expertise is not that "Everyone is an expert". It's that "You don't have to go to a prestigious university to become an expert". Sure, there are a lot of charlatans running around in the programming world, but the free exchange of knowledge and the absence of licensure has led to both a flowering of human creativity as well as (outside of San Francisco) non-resentful relationships between experts and laypeople.

> I am (or at least think I am) an expert. Not on everything, but in a particular area of human knowledge, specifically social science and public policy.

At least as far as the US is concerned, public policy encompasses everything. So as far as I can tell, this person really is claiming to be an expert on everything.

"Social science" does not fair much better. NOAD helpfully supplies "the scientific study of human society and social relationships". That seems to be a substantially broad claim, on the level of claiming to be an expert in, say, physical science. While there certainly are a few people who might make a competent application for that title (Feinman comes to mind), it seems to stretch the meaning of "expert", as Feinman's expertise in, say, biology, is of a substantially different sort than his expertise in particle physics.

I think the author may be falsely attributing his frustration about being heard to the "generational" "disregard for experts" instead of his own inability to defend an overly broad claim of expertise. If this article was "I am an expert in how much money we should be spending on space exploration and nobody is listening to me" then that would be an interesting, and entirely different, discussion. As it stands it's just tilting at windmills.

Yes, wide access to Google and Wikipedia have aided this trend, and raised the layperson's knowledge level. These things have also raised the burden of proof of expertise. I've never even heard of Tom Nichols; I'm not apt to take what he says as fact just because his blog says he's an expert in public policy.

I will, however, trust the opinion of e.g. Bruce Schneier because he has consistently demonstrated that he knows what he's talking about. If Tom Nichols aka Random McBlogger wants to be viewed as an expert, it's up to him to prove his expertise to his audience.

The first thing I did after reading this article was to google "Tom Nichols". The first few results were a horribly-amateurish blog, presumably by the same Tom Nichols (though no picture, so who knows?) and some wikipedia articles about a music producer and soccer player of the same name. As far as I can tell from a cursory google search, Tom Nichols is a nobody.

In the past few decades, we have witnessed what appears to be massive failure of experts on a number of fronts. In the media, people who certainly look like experts turn out to be con men... when well dressed "doctors" and "scientists" lie and trick people into making terrible choices, we grow suspicious. Anyone can pretend to know what they are doing, and blind trust of such people is a dangerous path to follow. Even the antivax people have what appears to a layman to be experts backing their side of the story.

Further, specifically in the areas of social policy, finance, and politics, the past decade or more seems to many to have been a disaster. Thousands of experts missed the financial disaster, and, from what the story looks like to many, bungled the recovery. The news that sells is all about disaster and the unexpected; things that experts failed to predict.

In is unsurprising, given these circumstances, that the title of expert is viewed not with blind respect, but with suspicion. If you claim to be an expert, then you are instantly placed in the same category as people who just want to exploit me for a quick buck.

I don't have a solution, but it is an explanation, and "trusting experts more" is not going to happen.

This author intentionally conflates his expertise in "public policy" with expertise in other fields such as science, and concludes that a failure to acknowledge his authority is no different from rejecting the authority of a real scientist. Like the proof that 0 = 1 by including a step where you divide by zero, his argument relies on the fallacy that expertise is all the same regardless of what you are an expert in.

Expertise in physics, engineering, or programming is qualitatively different from expertise in astrology, theology, or "public policy," in my opinion, and skepticism of the authority of the latter is not tantamount to skepticism of the former.

Someone with a PhD in physics or EE got it by proving that he could make things that worked. I'm satisfied that there is something real in expertise that has been repeatedly validated by voltmeter.

Someone with a PhD in divinity or public policy has not proven to my satisfaction that life would be better if we just let him make our decisions for us, even if the degree is from Harvard. Sorry. It's just not the same.

Which means you should have sound reasoning behind your position. And you should be able to explain your reasoning to somebody else. If you can't really explain your reasoning, it's likely that you did not think everything through--and if you did not think everything through, being an expert does not mean you're right!

I think of this just in terms of myself. If I hold a position but I can't explain it, it means I need to rethink it. If I've put some thought into a position--which is my goal for everything important--then explaining myself is just a matter of voicing my existing rationale.

So I think you should never be offended at having to explain something: at the very least, it's a way to clarify your own thinking and highlight assumptions. And if you're making good decisions anyway, it's easy!

This claim was originally by an expert doctor.

> Which is why articles and books are subjected to “peer review” and not to “everyone review,”

Peer review struggles to correct inaccuracies and by failing to share the underlying data behind the assertions made, and especially in Tom Nichols' area of expertise (public policy) the data is the only way of invalidating claims (as opposed to abstract mathematical concepts, like machine learning). Further more, most peer review journals are behind paywalls of some kind.

Contrast this to the accuracy of Wikipedia (where, yes peers review the knowledge, but so can the general public) or the increasing support behind open peer review (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_peer_review) and the open research movement in general (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_research) it is at least questionable to argue that closed peer review implies a standard of truth.

> but don’t tell that to someone hectoring you about the how things really work in Moscow or Beijing or Washington.

It is funny he brings this up because Beijing is rife with academic dishonesty to the point where if the exact steps / data to reproduce aren't explicitly mentioned in the paper, I don't even read it.

> [A large, large amount of opinionated elitism ending with a call for the return of the days of gatekeepers]

Gatekeepers impede scientific inquiry. It wasn't until 1957 that we seriously started examining human sexual response. This is 100% due to gatekeepers. By advancing the case for open data, open methods, and open journals we may suffer more fools' opinion's on global warming, but it is far more worth it.

The reason I suspect that this author is especially angry is that public policy is politics in declarative form. "We will use one school of 500 kids vs five schools of 100 kids" has far reaching consequences that spill into the political sphere. The reason public policy is hard to take a seriously as a scientific endeavour is that it isn't often provable, although with open data would certainly improve it.

Paragraph 2 - Straw man argument. People's resentment for authority has nothing to do with democracy, it's about all the false positives we consistently see ("experts" who are trusted to say make healthcare.gov but are not experts, economists who cannot predict anything about our economy).

He then argues that trusting "experts" is phased out in favor of google and wikipedia. He claims this is bad because "doctors, whatever their errors, seem to do better with most illnesses than faith healers or your Aunt Ginny and her special chicken gut poultice." another straw man argument. Wikipedia will not promote faith healing, it will lead you to the same and maybe newer medical journal articles than your doctor has read. Somehow he argues, trusting Wikipedia and google is, "Fundamentally, ... a rejection of science and rationality, which are the foundations of Western civilization itself."

Then he goes on to cite a litany of false-negatives, cases when people don't trust current experts and presumably are wrong. Okay. But he hasn't really done anything here. Because he hasn't answered all the false positives (false "experts").

The real question here is how to differentiate between an expert and a non-expert. When is it a case of hubris and group think among an elitist circle of self-proclaimed experts, and when is it true?

Unfortunately this piece provides no advancement to this question, other that pointing out one more false positive, the author.

The usual - social science gets disrespected, blogs that world is ending...

He'd have more credibility if he didn't quote Dunning-Kruger as if it was a law rather a debatable, sometimes observed effect. With blanket appeals to "human nature", you'll need more than some degrees to present your claims as fact. We can see where this is going. Indeed, I'm hopeful that this blog will shoot a few holes in his apparently rather thin credibility.

It's mostly intellectually embarrassing foolish nonsense. There's a significant difference between experts like developers, doctors, and engineers, and lawyers, sociologists, and anthropologists. The former group is composed of technical expertise that is necessary for performing the applied functional area of knowledge while the latter group is solely trained in the arena of thoughtfulness.

Want to lament the fact that social science isn't appreciated as it should be? Completely fine. But let's not pretend that understanding how to organize an economy is expertise nor that having such knowledge privileges anyone to make socio-economic decisions for anyone else. If ordinary people weren't the best at understanding how to organize their own lives, traitors wouldn't pay trillions to delude and manipulate them constantly.

Why did Feynman said Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts?

For the same reason this bitch is crying: because the truth does not belong to a minority of self decreted "savants", "erudits" or "experts", but it is the result of a fruitful dialog amongst people which purpose is the emanation of truth. The ethic of discussion is purely "anti-religous", it states no one knows the Truth and only logic, and dialog on a peer relationship can work.

Well, experts raise themselves above the crowd as if they were a hierarchy in a dialog. As if authority counted. They are wrong. If you cannot make a consensual point whether you are wrong or right does not count, because if people cannot accept your point, your point will never be accepted.

People average education raised. Average jobs now include a high level of autonomy, design and thinking.

Even Mc Do's jobs are more creative than you think : they have to deliver unique menus (watch at the combinatory of items) in standardized way (time and tools) and they must plan new supply chain for each customers.

Expert are now not the only one to have to use their brain at high level every days.

The should stop insulting people's education and call themselves our peers; we all are experts and I don't know for you but I recognize one and only one hierarchy: not the one based on status (expert) but the one based on ability.

Knowledge is not a state: it is a fucking process.

So I am thrilled to hear this guy acknowledge we don't need him around.

The expertise is dead, long live to the knowledge

I'm in agreement with the author on the idea that expertise has been cheapened by our culture.

I like to use the term "mastery" over "expertise" because I think the concept of mastery better embodies what a true expert brings to the table.

To me, a true expert (master) is someone who has deep knowledge in a given domain (or set of related domains).

You can't fake mastery. Mastery is, in part, the ability to produce consistent, high-quality results over time.

Anyone can get lucky once, or even a few times, but a master can deliver superior results more consistently than anyone else in that domain.

The issue now, as I see it, is what the author calls entitlement. I would add to that, impatience.

People want to be masters (experts) now, not later. We want to hack our educations and get results faster than the 1000's of people who came before us.

In the process of our impatience and unwillingness to submit to the rigors of craft, we, instead, settle for the illusion of expertise.

It's strange to me that people think a deep level of knowledge can come from anything other than a lifetime of hard work and dedication to a given subject.

Yet, we still kid ourselves into thinking that being the next Picasso, Sergey Brin, or Yo Yo Ma is just a matter of reading a few books and blogs.

An expert spends a lifetime learning a few things deeply. A dilettante knows a little about a lot.

I find it interesting that he mentions these controversial figures. It seems to me while he does present interesting arguments for the resentment shown towards experts, I think it's far more pertinent to discuss the greater death of ethics among experts. I think this is the primary cause, the lack of ethics, of distrusting experts when I speak to relatives and friends.

People, experts and laymen, obviously can't study all fields of knowledge so they put their "faith" in others. An expert in Biology is most likely a layman in Physics, so they implicitly trust their Physicists friends when relaying scientific progress. A physician is obviously an expert at medicine but most likely a poor software developer so they implicitly trust their software developer friends to advise them.

Perhaps I'm conflating institutional expertise with a mastery of one's field. However, the ethical issue still exists.

> The death of expertise is a rejection not only of knowledge, but of the ways in which we gain knowledge and learn about things. Fundamentally, it’s a rejection of science and rationality, which are the foundations of Western civilization itself. Yes, I said “Western civilization”: that paternalistic, racist, ethnocentric approach to knowledge that created the nuclear bomb, the Edsel, and New Coke, but which also keeps diabetics alive, lands mammoth airliners in the dark, and writes documents like the Charter of the United Nations.

But there are many experts in sociology who would ask us precisely to reject science, rationality and Western Civilization.

I think a far better approach is to educate all people better, so they are able to properly appreciate the knowledge of experts because they understand the field. One aspect of this would be teaching a lot more statistics, although the classical fields of debate and critical reasoning are also important.

Another problem is that many people, especially academics, think it is more important to push a particular agenda, than to make the public more informed in general. Hence people who want to promote gay rights, for example, don't want people to know that the probability getting AIDS from heterosexual intercourse with a White woman is extremely low. But in order to do this, they have to actively lower people's understanding of probability and statistics. They have to teach people to ignore their (admittedly imperfect) intuition about conditional probability.

Seriously, it's a link of this:

"Oh my goodness, Google University means people are now increasingly questioning experts, like me! And doctors!"

"What are you an expert in?"

"History. I teach at the War College and write about nuclear weapons. For example, I just republished an essay I wrote 14 years ago on how responsible documentaries of the Cold War must necessarily exclude examinations of Soviet motivations, because Stalin was the bad guy."

"...Yes, it's truly a wonder why anyone could fail to trust your proclamations of genius."

"Fundamentally, it’s a rejection of science and rationality, which are the foundations of Western civilization itself."

There are so many things wrong with this sentence it leads me to believe that he's not being serious. "Ad Hominem" is one of the most well-known (if misused) logical fallacies in existence, and nowhere in the scientific method is "trustworthiness of the scientist" a factor (instead, the ability to reproduce results is of the utmost importance). The fact that "Western civilization" relies on experts is a notable rejection of purely rational or scientific views, not a foundation of them. This rejection is necessary to live in Western society (I'll get a lot farther trusting textbooks are correct, and verifying as need be, than giving similar credence to a mad man's rantings), but it is a rejection of rationality and science nonetheless.

As somebody who is clearly well educated, he must know this. But then he goes on to defend Western civilization as part of his argument, and it puts me at a complete loss as to who this is attempting to parody. One of the final points, as well, makes it read like a parody of authoritarian arguments that simply don't exist in any major discourse I've seen:

"And yes, your political opinions have value. Of course they do: you’re a member of a democracy and what you want is as important as what any other voter wants. As a layman, however, your political analysis, has far less value, and probably isn’t — indeed, almost certainly isn’t — as good as you think it is."

So your point is that democracy wants our opinions, but our reasons for our opinions are worthless? Who could think that makes any sense? The whole piece is full of these sort of bizarre statements. Who is this "expert"?

"Tom Nichols is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College"

Oh. Turns out, sometimes the character of the person making the argument is relevant: He probably does believe this.

Expertise needs to grant you a visible advantage in some way, or of course people aren't going to respect it. You can respect experts with computers very easily, they can do things you can't, or they can do things you can much more easily.

Expertise in other areas is similar. Trained doctors produce measurably better outcomes than laymen and the system in which they're trained is trustable enough, and the systems they practice in are generally well designed enough, that it's pretty common wisdom to trust doctors. Of course not everyone does, but then again people have believed in crap like homeopathy for a long time, that's nothing new.

Experts in philosophy? Social science? English? That's a lot harder to measure, and to then be sure that you've got someone who's a well-vetted member of the expert group, rather than someone with a degree who's spamming noise is harder still. Not that I'm saying that they are, just that the visible manifestations of their expertise are very hard for the average person to see in some areas.

And let's face it, as students - by and large - aren't expected to do particularly hard things any more in most subject areas, that provides less and less opportunity for the expert to demonstrate their skill even when someone has the rare opportunity of interacting with them.

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> Once upon a time — way back in the Dark Ages before the 2000s — people seemed to understand, in a general way, the difference between experts and laymen. There was a clear demarcation in political food fights, as objections and dissent among experts came from their peers — that is, from people equipped with similar knowledge. The public, largely, were spectators.

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And thus you can't say either way whether they respected you enough to change their opinion, at least not based solely on that observation. Their thoughts simply weren't on display.

This might not be the greatest example to build my point on, but in the article he mentions the lack of respect given to professors so lets roll with that. Lets say gatekeepers still existed, there are plenty of professional bloviators with platforms that have been shitty on academics in general for as long as I can remember. If you don't know what I mean, Colbert has done some good bits on the popular "east coast ivory tower elitist eggheads" dismissal; the university system is a wellspring of education, but it is not tailored 100% towards being a employee-creator or doing all of an industry's heavy lifting for them, so they get trashed on. Is it any surprise that if students have a "get in, fuck this guy just pass his tests for a diploma, get out" attitude towards higher ed?

As I said, not the greatest jumping off point, but basically my point being that if you want the unwashed masses to act like X, then at a minimum you have to get the people with a platform to act like X.

edit/side note: OFC this is a small point w/r/t the article, not everything there. And this article itself is probably touching on a larger trend less about experts in specific and more about our culture's widespread individual narcissism.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/05/the-smartes...

“appeals to authority,” sure signs of dreadful “elitism,” and an obvious effort to use credentials to stifle the dialogue required by a “real” democracy.

Yep. Public policy makers who consider themselves "experts".

Not to say that some people don't know more about world affairs than others. But my view is that this crowd are generally too caught up in their "expertise" to do what is proper. Witness the recent NSA behavior. They are "experts" in what we all need. Never mind that their expertise is dangerous, expensive and hasn't done much good.

Now hard science is a different matter. But this case isn't that at all. There may be some knowledge of world affairs but it is intrinsically linked with ideology and OPINION. Another "soft science" guy crying he just don't get no respect. And possibly a would-be dictator who isn't getting what he wants.

I think the author is just lamenting on the lost prestige and authority of experts. It was inevitable to happen, as knowledge is cheapening. I would like to say i sympathize with him, but i don't, there's no evidence that the experts of yesterday were any better than the experts of today.

The real thing to lament about is how expertise has been superseded by popularity.

I wonder just when there allegedly was a golden age of politics where the issues of the day were discussed politely and with mutual respect.

1: http://paulgraham.com/identity.html

What this "death of expertise" has brought us is not a closing door into a world of knowledge, but rather an empowerment of common humanity, so that anyone has access to the same information that "experts" have.

I think we benefit most from scholarly debate of different models/analysis where the different sides adjust their position based on the criticism. I would also note that both credentialed and non credentialed people can be stubborn...

The barrier to knowledge has gotten much lower, so any would-be expert has to have a ready answer to the question, "why am I listening to you rather than just looking up whatever facts I need from Wikipedia?"

To see this, consider some points that should not be controversial:

1. Experts, properly identified, have much more factual knowledge in their respective fields than others who are laypeople in relation to those fields (the only thing the author gets right).

2. Being an expert in facts related to a particular topic does not mean that the person is truthful, benevolent, unbiased, or candid with the public; nor that his/her intentions, goals or ideology align with those of anyone who is asked to "trust" the expert.

3. Expertise makes one better qualified than others to make value judgments, only to the extent that the value judgments depend closely on factual issues. In other words, if A and B agree that X is a good policy if proposition P is true, but a bad policy if P is false, then the expert in the intellectual area covering P is better qualified to decide the right conclusion - but if A or B claims that X is a good or bad policy for reasons unrelated to P, then that expertise is irrelevant, and a false basis for following the expert's recommendation.

Keeping these points in mind, there is no such thing as an expert in "public policy". Someone may be an expert in factual issues that are considered relevant to policies, but making policy decisions intrinsically and pervasively involves value judgments and ideologies, regarding ends as well as means, and therefore is not properly conceived as a realm of expertise comparable to, say, bridge design, reducing infectious disease or conducting accurate polls.

Thus, for example, on views like the author's, if you can't recite the statistics about gun-involved deaths and injuries, you're unqualified to have an opinion on gun laws - but this is a gross fallacy unless you've agreed in advance that the right policy depends on those stats. But the latter is a value judgment, not a matter of expertise.

In this way he tries to parlay a sort of snobbery about expertise (he's obviously very proud of having been consulted by political leaders) into something like "you're anti-rational unless you shut up and obey". A real expert who's worthy of trust will instead present the facts, as well as possible to a lay audience, including the likely consequences of policy choices, and then defer to the public and a democratic process for decisions.

It used to be you were the only one paying your professional.

Now when I go to see a professional I can't be passive. I have to participate and be active in every decision. Because now I never know if I'm the only customer or if there is some other party to the transaction.

I want to be the only one influencing the behavior of the professional but even a paying customer can't be confident anymore.

If you cannot explain your idea to an intelligent layman then this is prima facie evidence that you do not understand it yourself.

If he really was an expert, he would see the underlining problem in this, instead of hatting the consequences of that problem.

Maybe if he was an expert in any engineering field he would know how to identify a problem instead of generating bigotry on the consequences.

Experts today better understand the former and provide the latter.

Since I'm from the U.S., I'm curious what the attitude is around the world. Does the layman have a lot of resentment towards the "expert" in other countries?

Note that the death of expertise may only be something that applies to the culture of the USA, not other countries. Or at least, not most other countries.

1. We can all stipulate: the expert isn’t always right.

All humans are fallible, including "experts", such as Albert Einstein, who famously rejected Quantum Mechanics.

2. But an expert is far more likely to be right than you are. On a question of factual interpretation or evaluation, it shouldn’t engender insecurity or anxiety to think that an expert’s view is likely to be better-informed than yours. (Because, likely, it is.)

There are "experts" in things that have no basis in anything other than the expressions of other people which may have no or very limited evidence to support them, priests, Marxist historians, Freudian psychoanalysts etc. Is their "expertise" of any actual value to the rest of humanity? What about "experts" in subjects that we as a species do not have a good understanding of? Does the conflating of those subjects with those that we have much better understanding of, for example conflating public policy with engineering disciplines, help or hinder this discussion?

3. Experts come in many flavors. Education enables it, but practitioners in a field acquire expertise through experience; usually the combination of the two is the mark of a true expert in a field. But if you have neither education nor experience, you might want to consider exactly what it is you’re bringing to the argument.

If the "field" is nothing more than some ideology, not backed by evidence, then any "education" in it seems to be open to challenge.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Upton Sinclair

4. In any discussion, you have a positive obligation to learn at least enough to make the conversation possible. The University of Google doesn’t count. Remember: having a strong opinion about something isn’t the same as knowing something.

Do I need to know the 12 Astrological Houses to reject astrology? Do I need to know the King James Bible to reject Christianity? Do I need to know Mein Kampf to reject Nazism? Do I need to know the Talmud to reject Zionism?

5. And yes, your political opinions have value. Of course they do: you’re a member of a democracy and what you want is as important as what any other voter wants. As a layman, however, your political analysis, has far less value, and probably isn’t — indeed, almost certainly isn’t — as good as you think it is.

So if someone wanted to bring about the destruction of humanity, that would be of equal value to someone who does not? Perhaps an Orwell quote would help here-

"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

Okay, so how about trying to find out what is actually happening? I would posit the following-

1. The Internet has allowed the dissemination of both fact and fiction, evidence and opinion.

2. Critical thinking, the use of evidence and reasoning seems to be lacking from most educational systems. A population that can be swayed with propaganda rather than evidence and logic is more pliable to the will of the political class and therefore this state of affairs seems unlikely to change.

3. The rise of "Truthiness" as a consequence of 2.

4. The speed of scientific and technological progress is now so great that expertise in these fields has become much narrower and the ability to communicate this effectively to the non-experts in a timely fashion has gone down.

5. The lack of progress in understanding of the complex social, political and economic systems we inhabit while simultaneously an increase in that complexity.

6. The increasing perception of many people that the current political, economic and social systems are overly beneficial to an increasingly small number of people and those, like the author of this piece are no more than courtiers to the beneficiaries. As this idea becomes more prevalent, the courtiers must defend themselves and so they try to convince the rest of us that they are experts who have the same precise answers that engineers could give.

7. There is no ideological solution to 6.

8. People in forums like HN who do have the ability to think critically increasingly critique articles like this and hopefully spur some critical thinking in others, this is then twisted by some, like the author into an attack on all "experts".

The first (something considered trivial) is Parkinson's Law of Triviality, also known as the parable of the bike shed. I ran into this at Google in the Real Games debate. It's useless to get into the details, but this was an area where I was the expert, but because everyone thought "games are trivial" (mostly based on exposure to shitty games) there was an incredible amount of product-manager-style bikeshedding, with the actual experts aggressively pushed back. (Google may be a weird case. If a company thinks that engineering is Smart People Stuff and design, product management, and HR are Stupid People Stuff, what kind of product management is it going to get?)

The second and more dangerous case is the one where anxiety (especially involving children) comes into play. There's no good reason to think that vaccines cause autism, or are in any way more dangerous than not having them, but because the stakes are so high, people feel a need to "do something" and take charge, but often end up making bad decisions. I think the insanity around expensive, private pre-schools ($40k per year, from preschool to college) in Manhattan and San Francisco is the same thing. It seems like a wasteful expense, and expectancy-wise it probably is, but when you consider the extreme stakes and what happens to people without connections, it's easy to see why people incinerate so much money on the hoity-toity private schools (most of which aren't even that good).