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

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The rise of the internet and other technology has made information easily accessible than ever before While this has had the positive effect of equalizing access to knowledge, it also has lowered the bar on what depth of knowledge is required to consider oneself an expert A cult of anti expertise sentiment has coincided with anti intellectualism, resulting in massively viral yet poorly informed debates ranging from the anti vaccination movement to attacks on GMOs This surge in intellectual egalitarianism has altered the landscape of debates all voices are equal, and fact is a subjective term Browsing WebMD puts one on equal footing with doctors, and Wikipedia allows all to be foreign policy experts, scientists, and As Tom Nichols shows in The Death of Expertise, there are a number of reasons why this has occurred ranging from easy access to Internet search engines to a customer satisfaction model within higher education The product of these interrelated trends, Nichols argues, is a pervasive distrust of expertise among the public coinciding with an unfounded belief among non experts that their opinions should have equal standing with those of the experts The experts are not always right, of course, and Nichols discusses expert failure The crucial point is that bad decisions by experts can and have been effectively challenged by other well informed experts The issue now is that the democratization of information dissemination has created an army of ill informed citizens who denounce expertise When challenged, non experts resort to the false argument that the experts are often wrong Though it may be true, but the solution is not to jettison expertise as an ideal it is to improve our expertise Nichols is certainly not opposed to information democratization, but rather the enlightenment people believe they achieve after superficial internet research He shows in vivid detail the ways in which this impulse is coursing through our culture and body politic, but the larger goal is to explain the benefits that expertise and rigorous learning regimes bestow upon all societies. Best Download [ The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters ] Author [ Tom Nichols ] – kino-fada.fr As Nichols would be quick to point out, I was likely to enjoy this book about the death of expertiseaccurately, the death of the acknowledgment of and respect for expertise due to the fact that it fits with my existing beliefs Tom Nichols book, based on his astonishingly prescient 2014 article in The Federalist, is a jeremiad on the loss of respect for the opinions of experts and for facts themselves He discusses at length the issues of confirmation bias, anti intellectualism, p As Nichols would be quick to point out, I was likely to enjoy this book about the death of expertiseaccurately, the death of the acknowledgment of and respect for expertise due to the fact that it fits with my existing beliefs Tom Nichols book, based on his astonishingly prescient 2014 article in The Federalist, is a jeremiad on the loss of respect for the opinions of experts and for facts themselves He discusses at length the issues of confirmation bias, anti intellectualism, prioritization of feelings over facts at universities, the internet s creation of instant experts, the explosion of talk radio and cable news and growt...This was disappointing Nichols is pretty straight up he blames the public s own laziness p 221 for the decline in esteem of expert opinion I was expecting a lotinterrogation of the corporatization of media and neoliberalism in general as a structure of disenfranchisement and disengagement Instead Nichols calls Americans childlike in their refusal to learn enough to govern themselves or to guide the policies that affect their lives p 217 , beset by a toxic confluence of arroga This was disappointing Nichols is pretty straight up he blames the public ...Marred by the author stepping out of his area of expertise and making causal and explanatory claims without proper data or argument on journalism, education, and philosophy of science.A thought provoking, impassioned case for what makes trust in experts necessary to a healthy, functioning democracy or republic, a distinction made in the final chapter I wasn t expecting too much from this, as I find a lot of the content in The Federalist to be utter tripe and Nichols is a senior contributor there , but it s always nice to be pleasantly surprised by a book and a good reminder that you don t need to agree with someone s politics to find their book worthwhile Nichols s wri A thought provoking, impassioned case for what makes trust in experts necessary to a healthy, functioning democracy or republic, a distinction made in the final chapter I wasn t expecting too much from this, as I find a lot of the content in The Federalist to be utter tripe and Nichols is a senior contributor there , but it s always nice to be pleasantly surprised by a book and a good reminder that you don t need to agree with someone s politics to find their book worthwhile Nichols s writing is funny and sharp, and I ll be incorporating some of his insights into my thought processes from now on.Some examples The Dunning Kruger Eff...Our public debates lack intellectual rigor, our scientists no longer enjoy the respect of their authoritative position in a given field, common people ignore facts and asserts their know nothing opinions as equally valuable We are living, Nichols says, the age of the death of expertise Paradoxically and unfortunately this book serves as the best argument for its main thesis.Or maybe it could be read as a sort of elaborate test on the reader are you capable of seeing through rhetoric amp Our public debates lack intelle...It should come as no surprise to many of you that I enjoyed this book I read things like You Are Now Less Dumb How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself Idiot America How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free The Righteous Mind Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion among others, and enjoy them This is in a similar vein, and slightly less humorous in the approach than some of the others, but that s OK Th It should come as no surprise to many of you that I enjoyed this book I read things like You Are Now Less Dumb How to Con...That s just like, your opinion, man The Dude Abides 1998 The Big Lebowski Discussions of politics or matters of substance these days are exhausting, especially over social media Polarity, discord, and maddening versions of the truth abound As Cicero once said on Facebook, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, just not their own facts.Dr Nichols, Professor at the Naval War College, and 5 time Jeopardy champion, expands on his 2013 seminal namesake article While there are numerous That s just like, your opinion, man The Dude Abides 1998 The Big Lebowski Discussions of politics or matters of substance these days are exhausting, especially over soci...Overall I really wanted to like this book and though it covers many very important issues, it just fell a bit short for me Very important topics, makes you think, but overall a bit preachy, negative, and I think it could have been better Most of these topics have all been discussed elsewhere and there was not much new brought in to the discussion with this book 6 10 or 3.5 5Summary I am going to summarize the entire book in the author s words, the goal of this book is to examine the relat Overall I really wanted to like this book and though it covers many very important issues, it just fell a bit short for me Very important topics, makes you think, but overall a bit preachy, negative, and I think it could have been better Most of these topics have all been discussed elsewhere and there was not much new brought in to the discussion with this book 6 10 or 3.5 5Summary I am going to summarize...Disappointing to say the least I am very interested in this particular issue and I expected to find answers When I stumbled upon this book, without a second thought, I bought it and started reading immediately I tried to avoid rating and commenting mainly because I expect once enough of those accumulate, two main populations will emerge, Nichols laypeople and his experts, and I want to belong to neither one I couldn t resist 1 The final chapter is the only one that could arguable fall unde Disappointing to say the least I am very interested in this particular issue and I expected to find answers When I stumbled upon this book, without a second thought, I bought it and started reading immediately I tried to avoid rating and commenting mainly because I expect once enough of those accumulate, two main populations will emerge, Nichols laypeople and his experts, and I want to belong to neither one I couldn t resist 1 The final chapter is the only one that could arguable fall under Nichols expertise The rest of the book, not re...Bullet Review Absolutely brilliant, this book punches through to the heart of why Donald Trump was elected in 2016 and other inane beliefs such as why were having debates on vaccines and the flat earth movement.Of course, this is probably confirmation bias, as I know I m not as smart as many other people and defer often to their better knowledge Wishof my fellow Americans were like this.Everyone needs to read this with a little...

The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters
  • 16 February 2017
  • Hardcover
  • 272 pages
  • 0190469412
  • Tom Nichols
  • The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters