Tom Nichols -- The death of expertise
========================================

"The death of expertise" really is a useful analysis of expertise
and of our trust in and use of experts.  But, also about the
political implications and consequences of the way view and use
expertise.

Nichols's argument is that we have become different, that the way we
consume and use information has changed.  For example, because we
have so much information and media available to us, we skim and we
do not read deeply.  How could we, after all, when there is so much
to absorb.  And, we choose our sources now whereas earlier many more
of us had sources of information (and opinion, too) in common.

One result of this is that we now all think that we are experts or
that we can become expert after a 15 minute read at Wikipedia or
after doing a few Web searches and then reading for 15 minutes on
what we've found.

And, on the Internet, I can find evidence to confirm almost
anything, including whatever I *want* to believe.  So, not only am I
an expert, but I'm also always right.  This becomes truly dangerous
when the Internet enables me to share and promote my "right" ideas
with an unlimited number of those who can do likewise.

Just as important is that the Internet gives me the ability to
promote to others what I want to believe, effectively helping others
confirm what *they* want to believe.  I can add comments to
articles; I can review books and other products; I can even have my
own blog, for free if I wish.  It's an incredible power we can use
to generate good and real and (hopefully, possibly) true
information, but it also enables us to generate an immense amount of
bad and fake and false information and opinions.  Why would I do
that?  Religious and political emotions are strong motivators.

One thing that will likely push us even further in this direction is
that we in the U.S.A. have a president (Trump) whose inclinations
lie much more in the direction of entertainment.  Truth and accuracy
are a very lower priority for him.  Imagine that a good proportion
of U.S.A. citizens start emulating him.  That could be another
powerful multiplier for the production of bad and fake information
on the Internet.

One thing that makes us even more susceptible to bad and questionable
information, especially on the Internet is the fusing of
entertainment, opinion, and news.  With respect to much of what we
read on the Web, there are no obvious markers to tell us which we
are reading and whether we are reading something intended to be
(mostly) entertaining or persuasive or informative.  Actually, it's
often likely that whoever produced that content is not very clear on
which of these three s/he is producing.

Increasingly, we do not trust anyone anymore, unless they agree with
us.  I don't trust you or your experts.  You don't trust me or my
experts.  Maybe it is not so much a matter of trust; perhaps it's
more a matter of what I *want* to believe.  We are coming more and
more to feel that we each have a right to believe whatever we want
to believe.  And, if some experts disagree with my beliefs, then
I'll just go find experts that *will* support my beliefs.
Unfortunately, there is not much hope of a rational argument or
discussion if we can all chose whatever beliefs (and facts, too, I
suppose) we want.

One modern exacerbation of this is that now everyone, each of us, can
be a "jounalist".  I can create a blog on the Web.  I can have my
own Web site.  We can post comments in innumerable places on the
Internet.  Every one of us has a printing press; and what's more,
what we publish on the Web can be seen by everyone with Internet
access.  But, of course, if I'm a journalist, if I'm a publisher and
if I publish, then I *must* be an expert.  Given this kind of
supporting under story, we should expect that we have plenty of
arguments where no one can convince any other person of anything
except for what they already believe.

Plus, journalism and communications are becoming more popular in
college these days.  Everybody has an opinion; no one wants to
listen.  The Internet enables us to collect and spread all the
information" that should not be collected or spread.

Given the above, you'd think that we'd become more skeptical.  You'd
think that *no* one would trust the news they get on the Web.  But,
apparently, an increasingly large percentage of us get our news from
our Facebook feed/scroll.  No wonder so many of us believe so many
fantastical things.  But, not me.  *I* don't get my news from
Facebook.  Oops.  Wait.  Where do I get my news.  I'd best check.

Nichols seems to argue that we're getting dumber.  Stephen Pinker
(in "The better angels of our nature" and "Enlightenment now") is
saying that things are getting better and, in particular, that
humans have become smarter.  We can't have both, can we?  Perhaps we
can interpret Pinker as saying that humans are getting smarter in
terms of some kind of raw brain processing power or in terms of the
quantity of things we know.  Whereas, Nichols is saying that, while
we may have more mental processing power and we might have more
information, we make less sense and we claim stupid ideas.  Nichols
even suggests that our increased raw brain power to argue for and
support ideas that are nonsense and wrong.  We need to be more
concerned about GIGO: garbage in, garbage out.  And, given enough
data and carefully chosen statistics, you can prove almost anything
you want, however foolish it may be, and that is what we do.

We use advanced intellectual processes to find and prove the wrong
answers.  Previous "less advanced" societies did not have that
processing power.  They did not have the increasingly large body of
"facts" that we have and that we can use to prove anything we want.
Conspiracy theorists are our proof that lots of brain power does not
necessarily lead you to the right answers.  Maybe universal
education was just a mistake.  Of course not, but it does have a few
unwanted consequences.  Perhaps when each of us acquires an
education, it should come with a warning label: "Use at your own
risk.  Do not try this at home." and:

    "THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
    EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
    OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
    NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
    HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
    WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
    FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
    OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE." (from the MIT Open Source
    license -- https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

One interesting aspect of this is that, in some strange sense, we
*want* to be dumb.  We have a need to "fit in with" and to get along
with our tribe, our social group, our family.  And, sometimes that
requires each of us to agree to some strange things.  It's so much
easier and pleasanter to agree to those things if we believe them or
at least believe that they could be true or believe that, if
interpreted differently, they would be true.  No one wants to be
convicted of heresy, after all.

We have to consider the possibility, perhaps even the likelihood and
inevitability, that when humans make decisions and act on those
decisions, they are not acting rationally.  That's a very sobering
thought, given how consequential some things that we do are.
Consider voting in political elections, which in the aggregate can
have very large consequences: that's frightening.  Isn't it so much
more pleasant to believe that we are all rational?

It gets worse -- Nichols discusses the Dunning-Kruger effect: the
dumber you are, the more strongly you believe that you are right.
It has all the marks of a positive feed-back system designed to
produce foolish results.  We could go on to discuss sunk costs (in a
system of beliefs) and vested interest (and our inability to give up
an idea once we have "owned it"), but we'd be descending into
hopelessness.  And, we can add confirmation bias to that mix: we
seem to have a built in yearning and ability to look for and find
confirmation for our beliefs.

Nichols spends some pages criticizing colleges: (1) We are sending
too many students to college, which means that many of them are not
well prepared to learn (or even capable of learning at that level)
and, since many of these students' primary goal is a degree and a
job, they are often not even motivated to learn. (2) We are
graduating too many people from college, so we have lots of people
with college degrees and these degrees mean less and have less
value.  (3) Student ratings of their professors is out of control:
if students can approve and disapprove of professors who grade
leniently or strictly, what would you expect if not grade inflation.
(4) Students are demanding safe spaces, trigger warnings about
possibly offensive content (and almost any content can be offensive
to somebody), and extremely rigorous political correctness.

Running an educational institution that educates students in some
high quality way while obeying those restrictions and requirements
does not seem to be a reasonably attainable goal.

07/18/2018

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