It wasn’t that long ago that some were lamenting the death
of reason and the revolt against experts. TV studios were filled with serious
looking people trying to work out how it was possible for on the one hand
Donald Trump to be elected in the United States and on the other the UK voting
to leave the EU. Clearly, they intoned, the populus of both countries had taken
leave of their senses. Expertise was under attack and ignorance was being encouraged, commended and rewarded. There was perhaps some truth in this.
Both experts and expertise came in for a bit of a kicking,
particularly in the US. Experts formed a convenient target of course. This was
partly because the terms were rarely clearly defined. Blame was attributed to
an amorphous group, without examining too carefully if it was experts who were
the problem, or the political decision makers. Many of the latter seemed
unwilling to engage properly with a whole range of issues, inform themselves
using appropriate expert input, and take and be accountable for the decisions
that people elected them to take. In the UK we got into the Brexit mess
(remember that?) partly because of this sort of political cowardice. A host of
complex issues, requiring a range of expertise to unpack them, was boiled down to
a binary choice and forced on a population that consistently claimed that it
was generally ill-informed, and in some cases actively deceived. A proportion
of the population appeared to be delighted with this general approach. On both
sides of the Atlantic the notion gained traction that the experts had done too many
of us no good at all. They were therefore of little value and could happily be
dispensed with. How things have changed.
As I have pointed out before, there are many situations in
life where we are happy and indeed obliged to depend on the expertise of
others. I do not have the first notion about how to fly an aeroplane, but
(until recently) I needed to use them from time to time. What to do? Well,
fortunately for me there are experts in flying aeroplanes; they are called
airline pilots. There used to be quite a lot of them flying aeroplanes with
skill, and able to fly me safely from point A to point B. I was really glad to
avail myself of their expertise. And not just theirs. It turns out that while
they were using their expertise for my benefit, they in turn were depending on
the expertise of lots of other people, like air traffic controllers, aircraft
maintenance engineers, and a whole host of others. Together, all this expertise
could safely transport me thousands of miles at a time. I was happy to trust
them to do so. Clearly some experts have their uses.
Now we find ourselves in a situation where expertise turns out to be a matter of life and death, potentially for thousands. The centrality
accorded to expertise in these pandemic days has been clear for all to see. At
least in the UK great stress has been put on policy being informed by
scientific and medical experts. Day after day the Prime Minister or other
senior ministers have appeared flanked by experts to whom they constantly
defer. Of course there could be a deep cynicism at work. It could be, and no
doubt some will argue it is, simply the politicians using the claimed expertise
of others as cover for them taking very unpopular decisions. But I don’t think
that’s what’s going on. I think that in life-critical situations, it turns out
we have no problem taking experts and expertise seriously. This is our attitude
in aeroplanes, and it appears to be our attitude in the pandemic. At least for
the most part.
Perhaps the consistent undermining and downplaying of expertise
is recent times explains why governments are finding that advice, sound advice
based on science, is frequently being ignored. Just this week, it has been
stressed just how important it is that in the current pandemic we socially
isolate ourselves and not meet with others unless it is necessary. Other experts
have told us that there is no necessity to panic buy and hoard foodstuffs and
other thing (like toilet rolls - for reasons no-one seems able to fathom). And
yet the flagrant disregarding of “advice” now means the state taking powers to
enforce what the science says should be done. All over Europe, and now in the
UK, there will be police (and in some places military) enforcement of the
advice. Expertise is back, and with teeth.
It is still the case that not all expertise is the same and
we need to understand some important distinctions. For the appropriate expert, flying an aeroplane
is a well constrained and defined task. While it is not true to say that there
are no unknowables, there are relatively few. Do things in a certain way, in a
certain order, and a safe flight will result – usually. “Usually” in this
context means almost always; in 2018 there were only 0.36 fatal accidents per million flights. However, the expertise we’re depending on in the pandemic is
different, although it is no less expertise. Here there are very many unknowns.
We are dealing with a new virus and while information about it is accumulating,
no one has anything like the full picture. So the scientific advice that
decision-makers are relying upon is a best effort, based on the information to
hand. And sometimes, experts looking at the same evidence may well interpret it
in different ways. There are different models of how the virus is spreading,
leading to different projections of how the pandemic may develop, and potentially
different recommendations about the actions that should be taken to improve the
situation. Then factor in that any advice issued has to be heard, understood
and acted upon by millions of citizens. You can see how the unknowns in this
situation rapidly multiply. But the experts and (in this case) their scientific
methods are all we’ve got, and a lot better than the alternative - either doing
nothing, or doing anything.
The experts have returned. Time to exercise a bit of faith; although let’s be clear – that’s
what we’re doing. Putting our faith in experts and their expertise (again). And
on a planetary scale.
