The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends The Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism by Jacob Hale Russell & Dennis Patterson. Here is a description:
The problem with expertise—and the dark side of the equation “knowledge = power.”
Experts are not infallible. Treating them as such has done us all a grave disservice and, as The Weaponization of Expertise makes painfully clear, given rise to the very populism that all-knowing experts and their elite coterie decry. Jacob Hale Russell and Dennis Patterson use the devastating example of the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate their case, revealing how the hubris of all-too-human experts undermined—perhaps irreparably—public faith in elite policymaking. Paradoxically, by turning science into dogmatism, the overweening elite response has also proved deeply corrosive to expertise itself—in effect, doing exactly what elite policymakers accuse their critics of doing.
A much-needed corrective to a dangerous blind faith in expertise, The Weaponization of Expertise identifies a cluster of pathologies that have enveloped many institutions meant to help referee expert knowledge, in particular a disavowal of the doubt, uncertainty, and counterarguments that are crucial to the accumulation of knowledge. At a time when trust in expertise and faith in institutions are most needed and most lacking, this work issues a stark reminder that a crisis of misinformation may well begin at the top.
And from the reviews:
“Jacob Hale Russell and Dennis Patterson’s new book The Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism could not be a more relevant book for this moment. Russell and Patterson deliver an unflinching look at the Oz-like nature of many of today’s experts along with a wonderful recounting of why skepticism in all its forms has been a valued trait throughout history. And they offer a possible path for how to be a thoughtful human in today’s world.”
—Bethany McLean, best-selling coauthor of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
“Jacob Hale Russell and Dennis Patterson make a convincing case on why elites, experts, and merchants of overconfidence fail so often and so majestically. Admonitions to ‘follow the science’ and put trust in spurious, conflicted and overconfident expertise may be at odds with serious science and rational decision-making.”
—John P.A. Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine and of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University
“Expertise is essential to progress, but as Russell and Patterson clearly document, it is too often weaponized today to suppress healthy skepticism and dissent despite both being required in the search for truth within and outside the academy.”
—Jeffrey S. Flier, Higginson Professor of Physiology and Medicine and Former Dean, Harvard Medical School
