More on the role of academic experts

Andrew Ferguson in The Atlantic offers a new contribution to the debate over academic experts in public debate and public affairs and he pulls no punches in arguing that academic experts have nothing to add to public-policy debates. He aims his current ire at historians in the current impeachment debate, but spares some for nuclear scientists who argued for disarmament in the '80s and doctors arguing for stem-cell research in the '00s. He also questions the motives of the "obscure signatories from backwater colleges scattered between the coasts" who enjoy the ego boost of seeing their names alongside better-known professors. As I said, he pulls no punches.

I do not reject the participation of experts as completely as Ferguson does, because I believe there is a place for that participation. Ferguson's pithy point is "[i]f I want to understand the Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s, Sean Wilentz [the Princeton history professor] will be my go-to guy, I promise. But Trump’s impeachment, and contemporary politics in general?" The problem is that the Whiskey Rebellion (or some other historical event) might be essential to understanding contemporary politics, making that expertise essential to understanding contemporary politics. The same for nuclear scientists. Ferguson dismisses their actions as assuming that "knowing how to build a bomb was the same as knowing whether it should be used," ignoring that scientists' knowledge of the bomb's effects is relevant, thus helpful, to the political question of whether the bomb should be used. I agree that some of this is argument from authority. But some of this input from experts is necessary, proper, and essential.

Which brings us to Ferguson's insistence that "[t]he whole democratic enchilada rests on the assumption that when it comes to prudential matters of public importance, the view of the stevedore is as valuable as that of the Princeton professor." But I am not sure that is democracy's assumption (putting aside that we are a republic, not a democracy). Democracy assumes that the stevedore and the Princeton professor's votes count equally in selecting representatives and that the stevedore and the Princeton professor have an equal right to speak on matters of public concern. But democracy does not assume the surrender or rejection of any role for experts and expertise. Nor does democracy assume that, on a matter on which the Princeton professor offers an expertise that the stevedore lacks, the stevedore's views should be as influential on policy decisions. Just as I expect the stevedore's views should be more valuable and influential on the question of working conditions on the docks.

Ferguson is on the same page as Paul, Eric, and others who criticize academics for trading on their prestige in opining on matters beyond their expertise; the trick then becomes figuring out when those academics are truly speaking as useful experts and when they are speaking as credentialed citizens (as Brian Kalt put it, "your average lawyer"). But Ferguson goes one step further in rejecting all expertise.