Our So-Called Experts
Ronald Brownstein wrote an article in National Journal arguing sorrowfully that America is the only democracy cursed with a major political party that gives voice to skepticism about the science behind anthropogenic climate change. Jonathan Chait chimed in, and asked at TNR “Why are American conservatives the only climate science skeptics?”
I was going to comment on this, but Ross Douthat made my points faster and better. The essence of Ross’s reply is that actually public opinion in many major European democracies is surprisingly similar to that in the U.S. – so the really interesting question is why the U.S. political system is the only one that gives voice to this skepticism. After all, in a democracy, when 40 – 50+ percent of the population has an opinion on a topic of immense public importance, one of the parties will normally reflect this, if only to get the votes.
The most interesting reply to Ross that I saw was by Ezra Klein, who called this “convincing,” and was admirably willing to call a spade a spade:
This isn’t a very popular statement, but there is a role for elites in public life. Just like I want knowledgeable CEOs running companies and knowledgeable doctors performing surgeries, I want knowledgeable legislators crafting public policy. That’s why we have a representative democracy, rather than some form of government-by-referendum. But of late, the elites in the Republican Party are abdicating their roles, preferring to pander to the desire for free tax cuts and the hostility to Al Gore than make tough and potentially unpopular decisions to safeguard our future.
It’s not so obvious to me that Republican elites have suddenly started to pander any more than the Republican and Democratic parties have for many, many decades. I have followed the climate change debate in the UK reasonably closely, and spoken at a number of panels on the subject in Europe, and it seems far more plausible to me that the tangible and enduring differences in the rules of the game that define the representative democracies account for this difference, at least between the US and the UK.
Among those things that I think create significant structural advantages for the non-elites in the US versus the UK, two stand out: open primaries, and lack of membership in a supra-national organization like the E.U. Party elites have vastly greater say in picking who gets on the ballot in the first place in the UK (as a thought exercise, imagine the Tea Party movement without the ability to challenge incumbents and establishment-backed candidates in Republican primaries). Further, many of the most important decisions relevant to the issue are taken by an E.U. apparatus that is, even seen in its most democratic light, democracy on a very long leash. The elites therefore have an easier time suppressing a popular uprising on the topic before it can get off the ground.
It is interesting that in the US the greatest successes for important emissions mitigation restrictions appear likely to arise from the threat of regulatory action by the EPA, supported by a Supreme Court decision. That is, it threatens to come from those components of the American system that are most insulated from direct democracy.
Both the UK and US experiences appear to validate what Matthew Sinclair – the amazing Research Director of the Taxpayers Alliance in the UK – has called the iron law of climate change policy: Restrictions will always proceed by the least democratic route available.
Of course, the reply of a Progressive to this observation is presumably: Bravo, the system is working as intended.
But I think this raises the crucial question in this debate: What is the valid scope of expertise?
In the case of climate change, there is actual scientific knowledge about the properties of CO2, but advocates of emissions mitigation schemes constantly attempt to drape the mantle of science, or more broadly expert knowledge, around public policy positions that, as I have argued many times, do not follow even from the core technical reports produced by the asserted experts.
Bill Buckley famously said that he “would rather by governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than by the Harvard faculty.” So would I. But I would rather fly in an airplane with wings designed by one competent aeronautical engineer than one with wings designed by a committee of the first 20,000 names of non-engineers in the Boston phonebook. The value of actual expertise in a technical field like wing design outweighs the advantages offered by incorporating multiple points of view.
The essential Progressive belief that Klein expresses in undiluted form is that crafting public policy through legislation is a topic for which, in simplified terms, the benefits of expertise outweigh the benefits of popular contention. Stated more cautiously, this would be the belief that the institutional rules of the game should be more heavily tilted toward expert opinion on many important topics than they are in the U.S. today.
This would be a lot more compelling if the elites didn’t have such a terrible track record of producing social interventions that work.
An aeronautical engineer can predict reliably that “If you design a wing like this, then this plane will be airworthy, but if you design it like that, then it will never get in the air.” If you were to build a bunch of airplanes according to each set of specifications, you would discover that he or she is almost always right. This is actual expertise. I’ve tried to point out many times that the vast majority of program interventions fail when subjected to replicated, randomized testing.
Our so-called experts in public policy talk a good game, but in the end are no experts at all. They build castles of words, and call it knowledge.
“This would be a lot more compelling if the elites didn’t have such a terrible track record of producing social interventions that work.”
What do you mean by “terrible” track record? Unemployment insurance works. Imagine the state of our economy today without it pumping money into the system. The FDIC works. Imagine what the financial crisis would have been like if average people could have been afraid of losing their savings. Social Security works. It’s got some funding issues but has largely eliminated the problem of elderly poverty it was intended to combat. I believe it’s pretty clear stuff like the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts worked.
Which isn’t to say there’ve haven’t been plenty of mistakes and boondoggles, but public policy making has actually accomplished a hell of a lot in making America 2010 a much better place than America 1910.
Mike
— MBunge · Oct 26, 06:28 PM · #
I’m feeling the earth move under my feet. The original discussion wasn’t about climate policy, it was about climate science. As Brownstein wrote “Indeed, it is difficult to identify another major political party in any democracy as thoroughly dismissive of climate science as is the GOP here.” All the hand-wringing in the world about the track record of social interventions doesn’t excuse the many GOP elected officials and candidates that deny the basic facts of climate change, e.g. Ken Buck in Colorado saying that “Sen. Inhofe was the first person to stand up and say this global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated. The evidence just keeps supporting his view, and more and more people’s view, of what’s going on.”
— Chris · Oct 26, 07:08 PM · #
I’ve been saying for a long time that, far all of their nominal disapproval of postmodernism, some conservatives are awfully fond of it in practice, when it suits them. So when Ross says that skepticism towards climate change should be taken seriously because many people believe it should be, regardless of their evidence or credentials, I say, maybe you should be a bit more fair to the postmodernists who you have such showy disdain for, Ross.
— Freddie · Oct 26, 08:12 PM · #
Mike,
Thanks for the always thoughtful criticism. I tried to summarize what I meant in the paragraph that follows that sentence, and provided a link to a much longer article that expands on it.
I clearly don;t mean that no government programs ever work, but was trying to criticize the idea of removing the process of establishing public policy in many areas from the political process and handing them over to experts. In your example, I don;t think we ought to argue that elites ought to decide what to do about SS, and treat popular attempts to use the process of advocating and voting for candidates who want to expand, contract or otherwise change it.
Best,
Jim
— Jim Manzi · Oct 26, 08:29 PM · #
Freddie,
I’m not trying to go all pomo and deny that expertise exists. I spent a lot of words describing a paradigmatic example of expertise – a competent engineer. The whole point of the post is that its important to try to distinguish between valid and invalid claims to expertise. Otherwise you have the flip side of arguing that there is no expertise – those with political power simply assert that their opinions / positions, etc. are the “correct point of view as established by experts, and resistance is simply irrational of self-motivated”.
Best,
Jim
— Jim Manzi · Oct 26, 08:35 PM · #
“Our so-called experts in public policy talk a good game, but in the end are no experts at all. They build castles of words, and call it knowledge.”
You are better off without statments like this. Obviously some public policy fails, but obviously some doesn’t. Right? And we also have a politcal process that adulterates most policy proposals. So we don’t ever get true bank reform or singal payer health care, or whatever. We get sme basterdized compromise. I’m alright with that because I do believe in the democratic process, but blanket comdemnation of “policy experts” feeds anti-elite populism. Which means that there is a large segment of voters out there that feel like they don’t have to consider arguments that go counter to their instincts/predjudices becasue they are coming from an corrupt elite. And thus we get worse policy.
So I really wish you would just stick to specifics like you did with climate change. I don’t totally agree with your conclusions but you made reasonable and evidenced arguments. I wish you would address other fields of knowledge in a similar way—even find areas of public policy where our “so-called experts” have been successful. That instead of making what are in a sense huge genralized policy statments: i.e our experts know nothing so we should…..” You are setting yourself up as one of those very experts you condem.— cw · Oct 26, 08:52 PM · #
“was trying to criticize the idea of removing the process of establishing public policy in many areas from the political process and handing them over to experts.”
Well, that I absolutely agree with. Technocracy does not have a better track record than democracy.
Mike
— MBunge · Oct 26, 09:14 PM · #
Didn’t mean to criticize you, Jim, only Ross.
— Freddie · Oct 26, 09:41 PM · #
“It’s not so obvious to me that Republican elites have suddenly started to pander any more than the Republican and Democratic parties have for many, many decades.”
When the subject is Medicare I think GOP elites have pandered more since 2003.
— Mercer · Oct 27, 02:41 AM · #
we also have a politcal process that adulterates most policy proposals. So we don’t ever get true bank reform or singal payer health care, or whatever. We get sme basterdized compromise.
— Replica Swiss Watch · Oct 27, 07:24 AM · #
Ah matoko, there you are.
Slightly off topic, but two impressive videoclips, just for you.
This one so reminds me of the robot taxis in the movie Total Recall.
This shows how robots are starting to exhibit true 3D spatial awareness.
This is similar to the Google robot car story from the other week.
This one is a humanoid robot that shows a very natural range of motion,
I think it’s remotely operated though.
Now put these two clips together in your mind.
Humanoid mobility and 3D spatial awareness.
How long before the robot labor-force outnumbers us?
Can you see why the aging demographics are not going to matter in a few decades?
— THE · Oct 27, 02:22 PM · #
mc. Don’t you understand?
There are two ways to stop a population from falling:
1. Increase the birthrate.
2. Decrease the deathrate. i.e. Increase life expectancy.
It’s also possible to have baby factories the kind of artificial uterus tech you’ve spoken about before. But I think it’s more likely the future will focus on longer lifespans.
— THE · Oct 27, 04:09 PM · #
Can there be a matoko_chan vs. THE edition of bloggingheads.tv?
— Smith · Oct 27, 07:39 PM · #
A question for Mr. Manzi: would Congress make better or worse decisions if most legislators had the expertise to understand what supply and demand curves are and how they work?
— Dan · Oct 27, 07:45 PM · #
Matoko,
I’m not really talking about WASPs. But I don’t see any reason why today’s Latino immigrants won’t be fully assimilated US citizens in a generation or two.
There’s a number of reasons why I think some of your more-rapid ethnic turnover models may turn out to be a little premature though. I think it’s a mistake to project the boom trends of the last generation forward into the next. Consider the following hypothetical scenario:
The US, Europe, Japan are facing major competition from China as it rises to fill essentially the same economic eco-space as the old industrial powers have traditionally filled. So I think it’s quite possible that US, EU, J, face economic near-stagnation for the next 30 years as China rises. Eventually you will start to grow again, as the Sino-centric global economy emerges, but by then USA, Europe and Japan will be little planets orbiting the Chinese Sun.
By contrast Latin America and other resource-exporting countries, could face near, all-out boom conditions as Asia industrializes. Commodities prices are likely to remain very strong.
Consequently I don’t think you are going to have nearly so many Latino immigrants for the next 30 years. Why should they leave booming Latin America and come to high unemployment and stagnant USA?
If anything, many of the more-recent Latinos may choose to go home, having given up on making a success in stagnant and permanent-depression USA.
I haven’t been able to find the flaw in this scenario yet. Any suggestions?
— THE · Oct 27, 07:45 PM · #
Socrates observed a long time ago that elites don’t know as much as they think they know.
— Mary · Oct 27, 10:12 PM · #
“Socrates observed a long time ago that elites don’t know as much as they think they know.”
But Socrates was one of the elite, so why should we believe him?
— Steven Donegal · Oct 27, 10:38 PM · #
Let’s talk climate “science”. Does the word ClimateGate ring any bells? Or do you Global Warming fantasists maintain your delusions by ignoring any and every fact that shows up your fantasies?
Here is what real science looks like: Scientist publishes a paper, making claims. Person sends author a message, saying “I want to try to replicate your findings. Please give me everything I need to do so (exact lab protocols, tissue cultures, software used, data used, etc.). The scientist does so. The person tries to replicate the results. If the person can’t, and others can’t, then the journal withdraws the article.
What has happened in the deliusional fantasy world known as “climate science”? Political whores masquerading as scientists publish papers based on data, models, software, and protocols that they refuse to release to outside researchers. They are repeatedly caught fudging data, yet nothing ever changes their behavior, or their conclusions. Because they aren’t based on facts, reason, logic, or anything else even remotely associated with real science. It’s simply a matter of faith, and of politics.
The one thing we can be sure about is that there are no actual scientists involved in “climate science.” Because any one who was would be publicly screaming to give the boot to all the political whores who’ve been caught out by ClimateGate. The East Anglia people admitted that even THEY can NOT recreate their results in previous papers.
If “climate science” were real science, every single paper they pushed based on those “results” would be immediately retracted.
— Greg Q · Oct 28, 01:37 AM · #
But Socrates was one of the elite, so why should we believe him?
The elites of our day are the Sophists of Socrates’ day. Socrates was sort of a tea-partier, critical of all the money flowing from the people to the moneyed educational establishment, which ended up corrupting it. Think of all the money flowing from the provinces to the national capital where the educational elites now distribute it to other elites, and call it “consensus.”
Socrates had to drink hemlock for bucking the consensus of his day. Media Matters and MoonBat.org would never let anyone off that easily now.
— The Reticulator · Oct 28, 02:03 AM · #
Why are people writing replies addressed to “matoko_chan,” when there are no comments from a “matoko_chan” in this thread?
— Thomas · Oct 28, 02:44 AM · #
Mike is still wrong about unemployment “working”. The statistics show the length of unemployment matches up with the length of the payments. That is why we the term “funemployment” was coined. Now, that is not a recommendation to do away with unemployment compensation, but it to note that there is a cost in even that social program that goes beyond the monetary cost.
— Rick Caird · Oct 28, 11:02 AM · #
Much of the hostility toward “elites,” and especially toward academics, stems from this factor: social scientists attempted to borrow or steal the credibility that had been earned by the physical and biological sciences.
In the last 1950s and early 1960s, science had enormous credibility, stemming from the creation of nuclear energy, radar, earth satellites, television, antibiotics, etc. Academics in sociology, politicial science, economics, etc asserted that they understood society in the same way that their colleagues on the other side of the campus understood aerodynamics or circuit design or microbiology. It was just a bit of an exaggeration, to put it mildly.
— david foster · Oct 28, 12:45 PM · #
david foster:
That two-paragraph quote from Drucker on your webpage is pretty outstanding. The last sentence is the killer.
Jim
— Jim Manzi · Oct 28, 05:39 PM · #
“That is why we the term “funemployment” was coined.”
1. The term “funemployment” was coined by a-holes.
2. Beyond that, I think anyone can recognize that people receiving unemployment benefits will behave differently than folks who are getting nothing. So, yes, providing jobless benefits probably do make some people less likely to take any job they can get. But do we want college educated professionals thrust into the same employment market with high school graduates, all looking to get a job at a local warehouse? Does that really benefit anybody? And is there any evidence that there have been loads of jobs available the last 2 years that people are simply choosing not to take? What would our economy have looked like without unemployment insurance during this downturn? What sort of social unrest and further economy deterioration occurs with 9%+ unemployment and no government assistance?
Mike
— MBunge · Oct 28, 07:51 PM · #
Greg: Give it up: you can’t dismiss global warming as fantasy the moment any climate scientist stops pretending to behave like the platonic idea of a scientific researcher and instead acts like an actual human being working in an economically and politically contentious field with billions of dollars and lives at stake. Guess what: people, not robots, do science. As the Atlantic recently pointed out, the same problems arise in medicine. Scientists compete, compromise, race to meet deadlines, and sometimes engage in bitter professional rivalries. If we refused to believe any science unless and until it came out of a lab full of plaster saints, then guess what: I’d have to write this on clay tablets.
— John Spragge · Oct 28, 08:42 PM · #
I doubt that hostility to elites is restricted to social scientists. Lots of hostility to evolutionary biology and climatology.
If we are to believe Plato, Socrates thought there really were experts about public affairs and the problem with democracy is that it denied this. The sophists were the democratic, relativist ones.
— Pithlord · Oct 28, 08:45 PM · #
Greg Q demonstrates nothing more clearly than that he knows nothing about how science works. Dare I say it.. non-scientists are not qualified to lecture “global warming fantasists” nor anyone else about how science is done.
The debate is clouded by confusing the distinct issues: whether global warming is real (a question only climate experts can answer) and what to do about it (a question subject to democratic forces). Guess which one the politicians are weighing in on, even to the exclusion of the other?
— Brandon Kuczenski · Oct 28, 09:11 PM · #
david foster will be our philosopher king. He and his cohort of he-man physical scientists will leave behind their lives of sexual, romantic and social rejection to lead us into a world of perfect rationality, where their every pronouncement will be law….
— Freddie · Oct 29, 01:28 AM · #
freddie..“david foster will be our philosopher king. He and his cohort of he-man physical scientists will leave behind their lives of sexual, romantic and social rejection to lead us into a world of perfect rationality, where their every pronouncement will be law…”
I am not a physical scientist, or any other kind of scientist, and you have utterly missed the point.
— david foster · Oct 29, 01:53 AM · #
Jim: thought-provoking as always, but I can’t help feeling you use different categories for thinking about these issues than I tend to. Consider: on December 8, 1941 nobody I know of had a controlled, double blind study indicating that acceding to Japanese demands would produce a world the United States could not live in. Americans went to war at an enormous cost and made tremendous sacrifices not because they had a scientific certainty about what would happen if they did not, but because they felt a sense of obligation: to future Americans and to their own self respect.
By analogy, we don’t have any absolute certainty about what will happen if we allow global warming to go on, but we know the worst possibilities look very bad indeed. By contrast, if we take measures to reduce unnecessary energy use now, at worst we will change the pattern of economic growth, leave more valuable petrochemicals to our children rather than turn them into fly ash, and create more space-efficient transportation systems in our cities. At best, we will bring completely new power sources on stream and lay the foundations for a new level of prosperity and freedom.
This might involve sacrifice in some sense, but it makes no sense to try to deceive ourselves that we do not now pay substantial costs due to the effect of our dependence on depleting fossil fuels. To the extent that our economy, our standard of living and our style of life depends on activities that deplete resources we cannot replace and that also damage the living environment, we leave a worse world for our children, and compromise our self respect by doing so. Those who think that self respect does not count should ask what would have happened if Franklin Roosevelt had looked at the economic numbers and the scientific uncertainty and sued for peace with Tojo’s government 69 years ago.
— John Spragge · Oct 29, 05:00 PM · #
“Science has to make do with the kind of knowledge it can get.”
Yes, and this is a good reason for banning the use of the phrases, “scientifically-based decision-making,” or “evidence-based decisions” in matters of public policy. Science doesn’t supply the kind of knowledge that can be used as a basis for anything.
— The Reticulator · Oct 30, 04:20 AM · #
Mbunge sez: “But do we want college educated professionals thrust into the same employment market with high school graduates, all looking to get a job at a local warehouse? Does that really benefit anybody?”
Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes to both questions. There are way too many “college-educated professionals” who are way out of touch. This would help.
I say this as a college-educated professional who worked at minimum wage jobs in between careers (and sometimes wondered if he’d be stuck there forever), who has worked as a construction laborer and, and who has had a union card. (I hope I still have it somewhere.) It gave me a perspective that my leftier, snootier colleagues do not have. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I won’t guarantee that such experiences will make other people into right-wing liberal conservatives like myself, but it would help people overcome some of the divisions among us.
BTW, it is far from a sure thing that the college-educated professionals are going to be able to beat out the high school grads for the warehouse jobs. But it’s good for the CEPs to really, really need them.
— The Reticulator · Oct 31, 03:59 AM · #
FDIC and unemployment are social interventions that work? Sheesh. If that’s the case, I’d hate to see those that don’t work.
They do have some good effects, or had some good effects. But it’s sort of like the early 19th century steamboats. They worked, but were unsustainable in the amount of forest that had to be cut down to feed them. The way we’re now doing FDIC and unemployment compensation is also unsustainable.
— The Reticulator · Oct 31, 03:58 PM · #