Experts we are

Over the last five centuries first the Enlightenment and then the Industrial Revolution have proven that systematic and rational attempts at explaining the reality not only could contribute significantly to improving the standards of living of many people, but also that there were substantial profits to be made along the way. That is why the few "classical" disciplines have seriously gained in depth, while new sciences are open every year to deal with domains that just did not exist in the past. Just as an example, only the invention of the telegraph made possible the realm of communications engineering. Before that, all you had was the Postal Service and pigeon breeding.

As a direct consequence of both the deepening and the broadening of science there has been a necessary atomization of the disciplines: even it our learning and communication techniques have boosted our individual ability to retain (or keep easily accessible) much more knowledge than in the Middle Ages, the exponential growth of the joint intellectual assets of humanity just makes it impossible for any one person to hold all of it or even a significant part thereof. Instead, our human limitations have forced us to reduce our scope and we have found in principle, two distinct approaches, although most people stay somewhere in between: some people prefer to cover a wide range of topics even it they do not get to master anyone of them, while others focus on a relatively narrow subject and put their efforts towards knowing everything there is in that field (and, ideally, contributing with something of their own). We call the former "generalists" and the latter "specialists" or just "experts".

Photo: University of Hawai'i News

The effect of this atomization of knowledge in social terms means that governments are forced to take decisions based on information that they do not have or do not understand. In the end, nobody can be versed in everything and, even if politicians tend to have a wide range of interests (because there are many things that are relevant for their constituents), they probably lack depth in some of these fields and are bound to be completely ignorant in others. This is where experts come into play: to provide an educated assessment for someone which is not well informed (or not informed at all). Ideally, the expert would not only pass a judgement on the situation but also explain the rationale behind the recommendation, which factors have been relevant and which ones can be disregarded, and how the relate with one another. But that would be in an ideal world.

In reality we have already mentioned before the "curse of expertise", which is notable by the incapability of many masters to effectively explain and teach their craft. This is very salient for a lot of people, who have an excellent command of their native language but, when questioned by a foreigner about a certain feature they are unable to reason about it: they have absorbed it so deeply that they use it in the right way inadvertently. A less-known example are Japanese traditional artisans, most of which do not teach their craft to the apprentices in a strict sense. They almost never explain why do the things in a certain way, they just, in the best of cases, will do it once or twice for the apprentice to see or, in the worst ones, just say "wrong" and let the apprentice to figure out. Of course, when working as an advisor for a politician, this inability to explain translates into the need of the government to "just trust" their experts. Ministers and secretaries are certainly no experts in many subjects and the actual experts do not manage to explain themselves, so the only option is unconditional trust without much of a vetting, which is strongly opposed to the concept of analytical and critical discourse that inspired the science in the first place.

The other problem of experts lies in Maslow's Law of the Instrument: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". In the case of experts this translates in the insistent search for solutions within their realm of expertise, mainly because they will not be able to work with confidence in other fields and the alternative would be to admit their defeat. But this approach is frequently problematic, because the best solution that a certain approach can provide is not necessarily the best solution overall, because it is a constrained solution. Consider a road that goes through a valley (or over a mountain range, we will see that the result is the same in reverse) going up and down as the topography demands. When looking for the lowest point in the valley one might go up and down the road, looking for the lowest point on the road (there has to be at least one). However, chances are that, if you are ready to step out of the road and into the fields and marshes that surround it, you will be able to find a point that is even lower. The lowest point on the road is a constrained minimum, while the lowest point overall is an unconstrained one. Of course, in the rare case when the road goes exactly through the lowest point of the valley both solutions align, but it is interesting to notice that the unconstrained one is never higher than the constrained.

Coming back to Monday's post, it so happens that there is only so much improvement that can be reached with a given technology. For instance, internal combustion engines have made significant progress towards efficiency and low emissions, but in the end, the best engine engineer of the world cannot completely prevent the emission of pollutants. That would require a change of realm that most experts are not ready (or not in the position) to make. Consider, for instance, the problem of animal test for cosmetics: a chemist in the industry will look at different option to minimize the impact of the tests in the lab animals, but they would never consider reducing the range of products on offer (which, of course, would reduce the testing needs) or even promoting an idea of female beauty free of make-up. It is perfectly arguable that no one would actively undermine their livelihood, but it is equally true that the solution (the best for the society) might go through leaving certain industries and practices behind, even if that means having to re-train (and pay unemployment benefits for) the workers that have lost their jobs.

Surprisingly, a similar consideration could be applied to the social norm: those who are avid followers (or even enforcers) of a well-established set of rules get so good at promoting some actions and censoring others that they do not even stop to think whether it might already be time to leave behind certain old uses and embrace instead new ones. Just checking the content of my blog it is probably very obvious that I am not one for specialization, that I have a broad range of interests in which I aim to be a "competent amateur", so that I can pass a judgement in a sizeable portion of the situations, but are ready to admit anytime that a certain question exceeds my depth and turn to the experts in the field for well-founded support, which is also very important even if I am not able to provide it in any realm of knowledge. How is the situation for you? Do you prefer depth over breadth or the other way around? If you feel so inclined, your comments are welcome below. Have a nice evening.