I liked The Death of Expertise but I was a bit concerned. The full title is The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters and it is by Thomas M. Nichols, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College .

I was looking for a good book to read among the Advanced Reading Copies (ARC) on NetGalley, The write-up on this book sounded interesting. I think our tendency to ignore expert opinion in favor of louder voices in public discussions is an important issue. I thought that I would probably agree with what the author had to say but I wasn’t sure at all that he would say it well. So I requested the ARC and figured I would find out when I read it.

I was especially concerned when I read in the introduction that this was originally a blog post that was expanded into an article and then expanded into a book. This could have been bad if he just took what he said into a few pages and added filler to stretch it to a few hundred pages.

But the author did a good job of expanding this article. He used the extra space to explain his arguments clearly and give plenty of examples to illustrate his points. On occasion I thought there were too many examples, but that was usually not the case.

This is a book that clearly argues that all opinions are not necessarily equal. But he also clearly states limits on expertise (and there are many limitations). I like that he devoted a whole Chapter to Experts being wrong. This is a quote from that chapter in my ARC (which has not been checked against the final book):

In the end, experts cannot guarantee outcomes. They cannot promise that they will never make mistakes, or that they will not fall prey to the same shortcomings that govern all human deliberations. They can only promise to institute rules and methods that reduce the chance of such mistakes, and to make those errors far less often than a layperson might. If we are to accept the benefits of a profession’s work, we have to accept something less than perfection, and even a certain amount of risk.

By a rather strange coincidence his article in the Federalist came up in a discussion I was having with some friends soon after I started this book. If you think you might enjoy this book reading the article might give you an idea of how he addressed this subject. Here is how his article begins –

I am (or at least think I am) an expert. Not on everything, but in a particular area of human knowledge, specifically social science and public policy. When I say something on those subjects, I expect that my opinion holds more weight than that of most other people.

I never thought those were particularly controversial statements. As it turns out, they’re plenty controversial.

I recommend this book. It is important and well written. It is worth reading whether you agree or disagree.