Here’s a review I wrote of Professor Tom Nichols’ (Naval War College) book The Death of Expertise back in March of 2017. It is a somewhat chilling description of the death of respect that Americans (and people in other parts of the world, too) used to have for experts in various fields.
At the time it was published, Trump had just recently been sworn in as POTUS, and if there’s not a more perfect recent example of the damage that can be done to all areas of government, science, and civil society than Trump, and the people he’s appointed, I really can’t think of one. The GOP as a whole can be largely blamed, but to be clear, there are people just like them on the Democratic side, too. Bernie Sanders, for one, is woefully and willfully ignorant on many scientific issues.
Sadly, Nichols doesn’t really have any answers to the problem, as they will have to be societal in scale. I’ve written a number of posts over the last year or two, describing where I worry that this trend will lead us, and what might have to happen before the trend reverses. Humans have such short memories, yet an almost unlimited ability to ignore facts that they don’t like.
https://www.smilesbypayet.com/2017/03/book-review-death-expertise-tom-nichols/