Why does expertise matter?

Mary Shirley
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read

I’ve thought long and hard about writing a science blog for years now. My motives are many, but most boil down to this: I believe people don’t understand what science is, and furthermore think that misunderstanding is a major contributing factor to why we are where we are as a country today. Ignorance is pervasive, and insidious in its adherence to the walls of the human mind. So often it is weaponized by those seeking power over the ignorant by sewing mistrust and distain for education, training, and competency. People who have never been educated about the process of scientific discovery are left vulnerable to the notion that all opinions are equally valid, that every source of information is of comparable value.

I’d venture to guess that few would hold this same opinion about a pilot. If you are flying from point A to point B, would you like someone who spent hours in both simulator and cockpit learning the ins and outs of that aircraft, earning a license to fly which is continuously vetted by a body of experts who standardize what it means to be a competent pilot? Or would you feel just as confident in your neighbor Marty who, while a very nice man, has spent his entire career in restaurant management behind the throttle? Marty is the man to talk to if you want to start a restaurant, but personally I opt for the pilot to safely get me where I’m wanting to go. The truth is that expertise means something. It means you spent a lot of your energy over a significant amount of time, often years, learning about that topic so you could understand the intricacies of your chosen subject.

Science is this concept on steroids. Not only must you obtain the expertise needed to do research, you must spend your entire career defending your conclusions against other experts looking for every hole they can poke in it! That isn’t to say that science cannot also be weaponized to further any number of agendas. The clout held by expertise can and often is used for economic or political gain, a historical constant that has led to some of the worst atrocities in human history. These dark roots escape no scientist in any field, and while we try to be vigilant in acknowledging and controlling for our own biases, it can never be forgotten that knowledge, once discovered, will never be free from appropriation. Scientific findings should therefore always be subject to scrutiny and skepticism (in fact nothing could be more true to the spirit of scientific advancement). But questioning findings and disregarding expertise are two wildly different things.

The simplistic goal of this blog is to cover new and interesting science in a way that is digestible, that doesn’t need a PhD to translate, and that highlights the value of the research. But the more profound goal is to further public knowledge about how science is done and what it means. We all pay into the body of human understanding about our world at large, but so often that understanding is esoteric and presented in a way that implies it is only meant for the elites. This will never be the case, as knowledge belongs to us all and we all deserve access to it.