Barrack Obama is in the process of selecting his cabinet. I think this would be a good time to talk about experts.
When I look at all the experts that get paraded out to justify political claims, both by the parties and by the media, something is missing. Has anyone else noticed this? It’s hard to put your finger on. Then it hit me. Our society has a special designation for experts: we call them doctors, as in Ph. D. Sure, there is an occasional bona fide expert that doesn’t have a Ph.D., but most of the time if you go looking for five world-class experts in some field, you’re going to get five Ph.D.’s.
Just have a look at President Bush’s Cabinet. Margaret Spellings’ education consists of a bachelors degree in political science. Secretary of Housing & Urban Development Steve Preston has an MBA, not a degree in urban planning. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters holds a degree from Harvard, but one that has nothing to do with transportation. Does anyone else see the mismatch here? Not only to most of these people have insufficient education to be in charge of these things, but their education is in the wrong field.
This is not limited to the Bush administration thing. Right now the Democrats are arguing over whether Joe Lieberman should keep his Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chairmanship. Some want to punish him for his negative campaigning against Obama. Wait a minute… HE’S A LAWYER. What the fuck does he know about security?
This is not U.S.-specific thing either – it’s a feature of the global political bullshit-scape. The Canadian Minister of the environment is a lawyer, not a climatologist, biologist or environmental scientist. The U.K. secretary of Health is a self-identified Marxist, former postman and union official, with no apparent expertise in medicine, healthcare administration or any related field. You don’t have to look very hard for more examples.
This is a wild guess, but the world’s exert on foreign affairs probably has a Ph.D. in political science, the world’s expert on education reform probably has a Ph.D. in education and the world’s expert on climate change is probably a climatologist, not an economist. So instead of just occasionally asking these experts for advice when government gets in so deep that the public won’t buy any more of their harebrained schemes, why not
Put The Experts In Charge in the First Place!
Update: US officials flunk test of American history, economics, civics
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politics essay |
The fallacy of credentials. Having an MD does not necessarily qualify you to run healthcare – fixing people’s innards and running organizations are mostly disjoint skillsets.
One of the best computer programmers I ever worked with has a degree in chemical physics. Don’t be blinded by what letters come after someone’s name.
@Billy Bob, I didn’t say that all experts had phds or that all phds-holders were experts. I said that if you went looking for the world’s top expert in political science, healthcare, security, etc., more often than not, that person will have the credentials. What are the chances that the world’s foremost experts on political science, healthcare, security, economics and so on are ALL lawyers? What are the chances that some jerk-off who’s spent the last 30 years running for political offices and sitting on committees knows more about urban planning than someone who’s spent the last 30 years doing research on urban planning?
That’s not a fallacy of credentials, it’s pointing out the obvious.
Once you hit the masters degree and on–most social science degrees overlap. Determining expertise shouldn’t be a matter of looking at the letters following a persons name. I’m with Billy Bob: there is a fallacy of credentials here.
By the way–what are the odds of a climatologist being interested in a government job?
@jonathan, do you have a masters degree? I do. So do most of my friends. They don’t overlap. Even the research methods courses are different, let alone the topics courses. You don’t hire a sociologist to run your IT department, and you definitely do not hire a lawyer to do urban planning.
I’m under the impression that most climatologists are pretty damn worried about the fate of the planet. The opportunity to make decisions about climate policy would probably appeal to them. It isn’t hard to get economists to come on board to make economic policy. I don’t see why environmentalists would shy away from environmental policy.
Maybe there is something to the old cliche, “It’s not what you know, but , who you know”?
Kavan,
You don’t need to be doctor to manage a hospital. Make sense now?
@Rick – very true
@ jonathan, if you could have anyone in the world to manage your hospital, wouldn’t you want somebody who was an expert in both medicine and management? I would. Ever have a manager who doesn’t know anything about what you, or the other employees, did day to day? I have. It’s not fun.
We’ve gone from what we’d prefer to what’s actually necessary.
@jonathan, in case you haven’t noticed, the U.S. is facing more than a couple major problems right now. Sure, a bunch of non-experts might be able to muddle through handling the financial crisis, two wars, multiple international threats, detroit going bankrupt, rising unemployment, people dying because they don’t have sufficient medical insurance, etc., but I think most people would agree that muddling through is not good enough. My point is that people in power should have relevant expertise. Doctoral degrees are a good sign of expertise, but nobody is saying there’s a perfect correlation. I still maintain that no one in their right mind could conclude that Joe Liberman knows more about security than, say, Bruce Schneier (http://www.schneier.com/blog/)
I prefer people with relevant expertise to hold positions in their field. I wouldn’t know how to enforce that kind of thing. I think we’ve whittled down your original argument to a more sensible position.
No group of experts can solve all these problems you mention. It’s not a brain trust that will solve the financial crisis, rising employment, and the Big Three’s entrenched players dilemma.