Dying expertise – have we really had “enough of experts”?

I had an interesting response to my last blog post that I was grateful that Premier Christianity picked up and gave it a very wide audience (Thanks Sam Hailes!).

Most of the feedback was positive which was a surprise! Maybe I tapped into something that a lot of us are thinking but choose to not say publicly. There is an issue with a situation where Christian leaders are perceived to represent all Christians which by definition they don’t and can’t. It’s not that they seek to do that but it can make for fairly awkward situations disagreeing publically with our brethren. As Protestants, you’d think we love nothing better than falling out over things but usually we keep that to very specific doctrine issues (infant baptism, the rapture, double predestination…). Science is a generally ignored topic – it’s thorny with the huge swathe of opinions we have (young earth creationism to standard evolution).

The main pushback I had was not due to the Christian perspective interestingly but from my generally dim view of lockdownsceptics. The points made against the piece seemed to be as follow:

• The fact someone wrote a scientific piece on Lockdownsceptics about masks did not believe in viruses takes nothing away from that piece (i.e. I’m playing the player not the ball, the so-called ad hominem attack)
• Even if Lockdownsceptics have a point of view, that’s the same as any other website – such as my blog.
• Even if they did publish one scientific review by someone who didn’t believe in viruses, that doesn’t mean the rest of the website isn’t correct.
• Why isn’t my blog peer reviewed? Isn’t it hypocritical to demand peer review from others but not for myself.

I think it’s worth talking through this in some detail as it is probably underpins a lot of why we are in this situation in the first place.

ad hominem? et tu?

First up, the ad hominem attack seems to be a fairly common response when people with no qualifications post a diatribe of nonsense. When you point out that they have no expertise in the area, the usual defence is “but you’re not dealing with the ideas!”. For one, I had previously dealt with the ideas of the article. But I found odd the idea that a demonstration of someone’s lack of qualification and non-belief in viruses can be perceived as an ad hominem attack rather than a rather clear demonstration of lack of scientific insight.

There is an article I love that was written prophetically 6 years ago by Tom Nichols called The Death of Expertise. It encapsulates a lot of what we are now living through.

I fear we are witnessing the “death of expertise”: a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laymen, students and teachers, knowers and wonderers – in other words, between those of any achievement in an area and those with none at all. […] Critics might dismiss all this by saying that everyone has a right to participate in the public sphere. That’s true. But every discussion must take place within limits and above a certain baseline of competence. And competence is sorely lacking in the public arena. […] None of this ignorance stops people from arguing as though they are research scientists. 

The obvious criticism is that it seems elitist. It is actually for lack of a better word “expertist”. If someone is making fairly grand pronouncements over the fact that masks don’t work when he has a severely flawed understanding of the topic of viruses (some would say understanding of reality), are we not allowed infer anything from that? Does it seriously not impinge on what he has to say about masks in relation to viruses?

Obviously that’s patent nonsense – everyone realises that not all opinions are equal. My theological opinions are limited by my lack of education in the area, and that I’ve picked most of it up from YouTube videos and books. If it turns out my GP has faked their qualifications, even if I’ve come to no harm, I’m not going to dismiss it as being of no importance that they are a fraud. There’s nothing wrong with arguing that someone who has studied an area and practiced in it has more expertise that the person who hasn’t. [That doesn’t mean the expert is always right as is discussed in the article – also see Andrew Wakefield for another example!]

Source control

I’m not sure how the idea that the name of my blog shows bias – it’s called MarkSurg because I’m called Mark and I’m a surgeon. Lockdownsceptics clearly assume their bias with pride in their name. That’s fine but that means that they are not going to be neutral guardians of factual science or facts. The Guardian and The Times have a point of view but that’s not the same as having no editorial overview or input. They won’t publish anything that just fits into their perspective regardless of expertise, facts or knowledge of that field. There are high(ish) standards to adhere to – but that’s not the case for lockdownsceptics.

My main point was that Christian leaders were using it as a primary source for what they thought was scientific information. As there clearly is no editorial oversight (or peer-review – more of that later) or review of the author’s expertise, it’s just mostly non-expert opinion pieces of a certain bias – nothing more… There’s always room for that but take it as such – don’t give it an elevated “factual” or “scientific” status as if on par with Nature or The Lancet.

Peer review

I commented that none of the output from lockdownsceptics is peer-reviewed. The response back to me was “nor is your blog or your tweets!” which you can say is a fair point. My blog indeed isn’t and I’m also semi-anonymous here (Premier Christianity were given my medical registration details as well as ID so they could check I was actually a doctor). So isn’t that hypocritical? Can you take my takedowns seriously?

That generally misunderstands how peer review works – if I make a grand pronouncement on this blog that “Two cloves of garlic a day cures impotence”, it would (hopefully!) be met with some scepticism by my peers. “What research have you done to prove it?”, “Is it replicable?”, “What was your experimental design?” and the usual “You’re full of it!”. That’s informal peer review (albeit a polite and genteel version). Same if I’m saying that I have proof that the Swedish Government’s approach to Covid-19 was the best approach to take or that masks don’t work – with grand claims, comes the requirements to substantiate those claims and submit them for criticism by your peers.

So if I really believe in this Garlic theory, I would have generated data to back it up and try to get it published. It’s a painful process of getting knocked back and criticised endlessly – it’s the least fun I’ve ever had. If my peers (usually at least two) think that my methodology and stats are correct, then it can be published as peer-reviewed. (I assume the next question will be “Ah but who peer reviews the peer reviewers?” – at that point, it’s probably best giving up)

The thing is on this blog, I’m not making grand pronouncements of any major impact on people’s lives. If I would say anything major, then yes – I should be trying to get it published and peer reviewed if I believe in it. Otherwise, it’s just non-expert opinion – just a guy down the pub. As we can now agree, that’s just what lockdownsceptics is – and should remain without being given an unduly hallowed status.

[As an aside, the recent pandemic has created an explosion of non-peer reviewed pre-publications – you can post it online at medrxiv with no peer review as most of them stay. I’ve gone over one of those that was quoted by Tegnell. It’s been looked at positively (peer-reviewed paper here) though I take a dimmer view that there’s a lot of people using this as a way to mystify the masses that “it’s a publication therefore reliable”. ]

Where to from here?

I wonder if the internet has uncorked a genie of pseudo-expertise / pseudo-science or if it’s just always been there latent. There’s a very fine line between genuine scientific divergence and pure quackery/conspiracy theory that seems to be getting harder to discern at times often with people straddling the line in a rather mesmerising fashion.

I’m not calling for peer-review on every publication – if you are serious about you are putting out is science, get it peer reviewed. If what you are putting out is worthwhile opinion, have some decent editorial standards on your website. And the main point remains to Christian leaders – please check your sources and don’t claim biased opinion to be “scientific fact”.