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The tyranny of expertise
...It is necessary to state at the outset that any civilised twenty-first-century society is likely to take expertise seriously. The efficient functioning of such a society depends, to a significant extent, on the quality of contribution made by its experts. Anyone who is ill or confronted with a technical problem will turn to an expert.

The problem is not the status of the expert, but its politicisation. All too often experts do not confine their involvement in public discussion to the provision of advice. Many insist that their expertise entitles them to have the last word on policy deliberation. Recent studies indicate that in public debates those whose views run counter to the sentiments of scientific experts find it difficult to voice their beliefs.

From time to time experts also use their authority to silence opponents and close down discussion. For example, those who argue that the debate on climate change is finished claim the authority of scientific expertise. That was how former British environment minister David Miliband justified his 2007 statement that ‘the debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over’. The impulse to close down debate is also evident in the attacks on Australian geologist Ian Plimer for raising questions about the prevailing consensus on climate change in his book Heaven and Earth. Plimer, it was pointed out with some finality, was not a climate change expert. ...

...The flip side of expertise is an incompetent public. Historically, the ambiguous relationship between democracy and reliance on expertise has led many thinkers to draw pessimistic conclusions about the capacity of the public to play the role of a responsible citizenry. This argument is presented forcefully by American commentator Walter Lippmann in his classic 1992 study, Public Opinion. Lippmann declared that the proportion of the electorate that is ‘absolutely illiterate’ is much larger than one would suspect and that these people, who are ‘mentally children or barbarians’, are natural targets of manipulators....

...The problem is not expertise. Society needs expert authority, and expert authority needs an epistemic on which to draw. Society does not need the continuance of an epistemocratic political approach that rejects decision-making based on political judgment and hides behind technical expert advice. Nor does it need the manipulation of expert opinion as a smokescreen for political intervention, especially not in the private sphere....