Uncertainty #12: The Expert Paradox
In which Adaam can’t stop asking experts for help understanding why experts have gotten so terrible.
Hello, followers of Uncertainty. Our talk with David Krakauer started me thinking about the tug and pull of expertise.
When I first heard him make the case for the anti-disciplinary Santa Fe Institute, which he leads, I thought nothing can be more Uncertain Thingsy. The current overspecialization of academic disciplines, it seems to me, has done a lot to damage the ethos and creativity of higher education. The hedgehog approach to learning certainly produces expertise, but can also blind the highly professionalized academic to the matter-of-fact wisdoms of other fields. Synthesized knowledge, tying together seemingly unrelated threads of study, can not only energize discovery, it also helps expose bullshit (or if you prefer it put more mildly: accumulated detritus). The issue of bullshit becomes especially acute when disciplines don't come in contact with outside influence. Intellectual autarky can lead to esoteric, solipsistic, inbred research, turn scholarship into scholastics, and incentivize scholars to willfully ignore internal contradictions, wastefulness, and failures.
But enough about string theory. At the heart of this frustration with the current state of the academy is an admittedly-idealized nostalgia for the grand discoveries of the Scientific Age, from the Copernican revolution to the splitting of the atom, from falling bodies to black holes. Squinting back at the history of science gives the impression of human innovation leaping forward and at terrifying pace, coming ever closer to the ultimate conquest of nature. The heroes of this history were polymaths with titles like “natural philosopher” and “logician.” Optics and logical symbology (mathematical formalism) riveted Newton as much as the movement of celestial bodies. Erwin Schrödinger immersed himself in molecular biology when not busy formalizing his wave function and revolutionizing quantum mechanics. Renaissance giants delivered humanity from darkness, taught us how to land on the moon, read prehistory in subatomic particles, and created synthetic life. Judged against this, the past 50 years, during which our fields of study have grown more isolated and professionalized, have achieved little more than a readjustment of screen size (hyperbolically speaking). Maybe tearing down the artificial barriers between disciplines will rejuvenate our sciences at last.
Maybe! Not for me to guess whether Krakauer’s reimagining of research is indeed the cure to stagnation — or whether our sciences really are stagnating (maybe it’s true that the great revolutions are behind us and whatever’s left to be discovered will happen within the ever-narrowing tunnel of specialized knowledge?). Is the complexity we need really horizontal rather than vertical? For my two schmekles, having more research centers like Sante Fe is at least a worthy challenge to the status quo of graduate-schools-to-peer-review-journals-back-to-graduate-schools hell loop.
But what it makes me think about is the very question of expertise. It’s a paradox we keep running into on Uncertain Things (arguably the germ that inspired us to launch the blog): the expert class has failed us…so let’s talk to experts to explain how bad things really are.
There’s ample cause for disillusionment with experts. For me: multiple encounters with frauds and mediocrities in my own fields (journalism, history…) supercharged by the shambolic misconduct of central, authoritative, gatekept institutions in recent years. Listing examples is a waste of your time if you’re a regular listener (and if you’re not, then what are you doing reading this?). But as I find myself often lamenting, our despair is not with the notion of rarified expertise itself, but with its corruption. Jacques Barzun, the author of the life-changing From Dawn to Decadence, defines corruption as a stage of advanced decadence in which an institution begins to operate in direct opposition to its purpose. Journalism outlets calling for the suppression of information and the abolition of objectivity, for example. Research universities suffocating research. Civil rights groups gutting due process.
But what causes such corruption? In some cases it really is the lack of cross-pollination. What starts as a process of specialization can result in intellectual insulation. Many an Uncertain Things guest has pointed to lack of viewpoint diversity in our elite institutions as the catalyst of their decay, usually referring to the overrepresentation of progressive thinking. But lack of attention to other fields also has this effect. (Listen to our conversation with Vishaan Chikrabarti to hear why national politicians need to embrace some urbanist thinking, why urbanist community organizers need to think more like economists, and why New York needs much fewer Chase banks.)
But the opposite can also corrupt. Too little focus, too wide a worldview and knowledge, hobbyism, hunches, and vibes all blur together. If anything, that’s the version I’m more familiar with. Journalism is the refuge of the dilettante, after all (pleased to meet you!). Remember how in 2020 our colleagues in the media transformed within days from epidemiologists, to scholars of police violence and racial justice, to constitutional law experts. Life is too interesting for specialization! The result isn’t just shallowness, but also the resurgence of grand narratives. Jumping from one topic to the next can overwhelm the mind… but what if they were to be all understood not as distinct phenomena (in possibly distinct magesteria!), but as manifestations of a monocausal explanation? Systemic racism? Late stage capitalism? The decadence of the liberal world? Have your pick — the important thing is that you’ve taken the rich textures of complex subjects and e pluribus unum-ed them into a flat unified theory of nothing.
So did I go through all this just to acknowledge the triviality that we need both hedgehogs and foxes? Looks like it. Is this a cop out? Hell, yeah. At times I morph into a gooey sapiophile as scientists initiate me into their hermetic research, be it in neurobiology, astrophysics, or evolutionary psychology (and absolutely nothing is hotter than someone showing me just how little I know about my own fields!). Other times the cynicism of our knowledge institutions can make me lose my faith in the very possibility of expertise. I regret to say this fitful answer is the best I’ve got. But, hey, this is Uncertain Things, the point of which has always been to work out, or at least confront, our holes of ambivalence. And this — the paradox of experts — might be the hole of holes for me. But one thing I can say with certainty: if somehow you do come out of this newsletter with even the slightest ray of newly-gained clarity, blame it on Vanessa’s expert edits.
Things Worth Your Time ⏰
🕷️ Into the Spiderverse did not dazzle me as it did some. The gorgeous art and consistently satisfying humor didn’t blind me to its gimmickiness and, worse, to the fact that underneath all its gimcrack stylishness, it was, after all, still a superhero movie. I cannot stomach any more superhero movies. Or so I thought. Across the Spiderverse had me rapt for the entirety of its immodest runtime. This time all the seemingly eclectic elements – from its dizzying art to its entrancing music and sound design – were slaves to a bittersweet moment-to-moment storytelling. I can hardly believe I’m writing this, but I might – might! – rewatch it.
🧑🎓We (Vanessa intruding in here) really enjoyed this double-length episode of The Unspeakable Podcast with Sarah Hepola. The first half of the conversation is all about Sarah’s experiences teaching a writing class, and interacting up close and personally with the Zoomer generation for the first time. The second half covers the her experience not becoming a mother, when she always thought she would, as well as the changing mores around sex and dating for women in their forties.
👶If you, like us, are a Millennial-of-a-certain-age thinking about whether or not to procreate, you may find that this episode of the Embodied podcast has some helpful tactics for baby-making decision-making.
What We’re Working On ⏭
Coming up next: we’re rejoined by audience-favorite Peter Turchin to continue where we left off in our discussion of Western civilization’s imminent collapse. We will also try to answer a deep query which some of you may have quietly pondered: is Turchin more a Hari Seldon or a Leto II, God Emperor of Dune?