Too few COVID experts
Lack of knowledge proving more and more deadly
Ionce hoped to become an expert on experts. Or, to be more specific, I spent several years researching a book — never completed, largely due to my own lack of expertise — on the historical development of the rules governing expert witnesses in trials.
The notion that certain authorities have specialized knowledge to offer the courts that transcends mere “common sense” dates to at least the 1782 British legal case of Folkes v. Chadd, when engineer John Smeaton was permitted to testify regarding the causes of silting in a Norfolk harbor. The current Federal Rules of Evidence permits expert testimony from individuals “qualified...by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education” who can offer “scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge” that is “based on sufficient facts or data.”
In contrast, outside the courtroom, anyone can stylize himself an expert and offer an opinion.
In many areas of life, this is harmless. Football fans often believe they know more than coaches and quarterbacks, especially on the Monday mornings after Sunday’s games. Armchair pundits of various qualifications have increasingly replaced pollsters as the handicappers of our elections. Rare is the voter who does not have a pet theory as to why Hillary Clinton lost or who Joseph Biden will choose as a running mate.
And sometimes, the experts prove wrong: Between 2003 and 2018, the managers of large cap mutual funds
— the expert stock-pickers — underperformed the S&P 500 Index by 91.6 percent.
However, a lack of expertise can also prove dangerous. Every schoolkid who has watched video of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge’s oscillating deck learns this. Boeing surely wishes it had consulted more outside experts before bringing its flawed 737 Max to market.
Since the Progressive movement of the early 20th century, our political leaders have accepted that some decisions require expertise. President Franklin
Roosevelt relied upon a brain trust of technocrats to manage the New Deal; John F. Kennedy navigated the Cuban missile crisis with a team of national security gurus known as EXCOMM. Most recent presidents have consulted their predecessors on crucial decisions while in office.
Yet somehow, the current pandemic has rendered us a nation of experts. On complex issues from herd immunity and contact tracing to the efficacy of various unproven treatments against COVID-19, ordinary citizens are blanketing the airwaves and the internet with a maelstrom of rumor and common sense and unsourced “proven fact.” One recent morning, I heard a customer explain to a store clerk not to cover his nose with his surgical mask, because it was important that sufficient air enter his lungs.
One feature that defines experts is that they know what they do not know. In contrast, those who have less expertise overestimate their
understanding and ability, because they are not aware of their gaps in knowledge. This is known in psychology as the Dunning-kruger effect. We are now witnessing this phenomenon on a mass scale.
The late New York Sen. Daniel Moynihan was fond of saying that everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. But in high stakes matters of scientific expertise, this is not necessarily true. Expertise is not a democracy. One cannot form worthwhile opinions without an adequate level of baseline knowledge. All people may be created equal. All ideas are not.
I am frequently contacted by colleagues, and occasionally by the media, as an authority on pandemic ethics.
But the questions I am asked do not yet have answers: Will enough Americans embrace social distancing to defeat the pandemic? Was Sweden correct to embrace a looser model of management that relies upon herd immunity? I am enough of an expert to know the correct answer: I have no idea.
A select few scientists and public health authorities do know something about the COVID-19 pandemic. Far more of us know very little. Anyone who tells you they know a lot is either delusional or lying. One of the few things that can be said with certainty of the current crisis is that we have far too many self-styled experts and not enough expertise.
One feature that defines experts is that they know what they do not know.
Dr. Jacob M. Appel is director of ethics education in psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is the author of a collection of ethical conundrums, “Who Says You’re Dead?”