Be Wary of the Experts

Yesterday on the Journal Bill Moyers interviewed Victor Navasky and Christopher Cerf, founders of the Institute of Expertology and co-authors of the books The Experts Speak and Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won the War in Iraq the latter being an in-depth study and analysis of five years of expert commentary on the Iraq War.

The interview centered around the point that the experts agreed on various points surrounding the Iraq War that all turned out to be wrong-- such things as that the war would only take a few months or maybe only weeks, not much sacrifice would be required, the financial cost would be minimal, civilian casualties would be few, and there would be little damage to Iraq's infrastructure.

Although the interview was about experts in relationship to the Iraq War, I felt there were some lessons to be learned that could be applied to education experts. For example, in asnwer to Bill Moyers questions as to who decides who is an expert and what makes an expert, the two authors answered:

• If you are in the government, you are by definition an expert--specifically heads of departments who are supposed to know what they are talking about. They added that you if you disagree with someone in the government you are believed to be unpatriotic and any expertise you may have becomes suspect.
• Experts also include scholars, pundits, and columnists--people who have positions of status and power.
• People are believed to be experts who proclaim their expertise. Some do it directly. Others use jargon, announce the number of their published articles, use their titles, or by their uniforms.

The authors made some other points about expertise that could also apply to education experts:

• Expertise seems to be passed from one generation of powerful people to another.
• They borrow each other's language and reinforce each other's message.
• They are arrogant in their erroneousness.
• They have contempt for those who don't agree with them or who they don't consider worthy.
• Claim that a situation is not their fault and blame someone or something else,
• If they are proven to be wrong, they just continue to say what they said previously but in different ways.
• They find ways --even outlandish at times--to dismiss findings that don't support preconceived beliefs.
• People who are in charge of promoting others promote people who come from the same power environment and reaffirm the core beliefs they had in the first place.

Needless to say not all experts fit this description, but we would be wise to be wary of those who do.