Posted on 10/27/2020 4:05:38 PM PDT by Kaslin
In recent weeks, Joe Biden has made his willingness to “listen to the scientists” a central pillar of his campaign and a major point of contrast between himself and Donald Trump. He has even said that he would shut down the nation’s economy again to stop the coronavirus if scientists recommended it.
Unsurprisingly, Biden has since been endorsed by Scientific American and Nature, as well as 81 Nobel laureates, who praised him for “his willingness to listen to experts.”
All told, this represents a startling readiness on Biden’s part to cede much of his decision-making power to a small, unelected intellectual caste.
We live in a nation where citizens are given, at least nominally, a voice in public policy matters that directly affect them, and where the powers of government are restrained by the rule of law. All of this stands in stark contrast to the notion of rule-by-expert.
Indeed, if Biden sees himself as a mere conduit for the policy recommendations of experts, perhaps we should do away with the middleman. Instead of our three current branches of government, let us be ruled openly by an all-powerful council of experts, who shall issue their proclamations from on high with no check or balance on their authority. Perhaps the Iranian model will provide a useful blueprint, with the scientists standing in for the ayatollahs. Theocracy and technocracy are not so far off from each other.
If the experts truly aspire to call the political shots, then it ill-becomes them to hide behind a veneer of representative government. Permit us at least the dignity of honest tyranny.
Lest this sound extreme, it is worth taking a look at exactly what some of the experts are recommending. In a recent article, the oft-vaunted Dr. Fauci made calls for “radical changes” to “the infrastructures of human existence,” with the goal of “living in greater harmony with nature.” These are sweeping policy proposals, and the American people surely deserve some chance to debate them before they are implemented.
Although most experts are bright and well-intentioned people, this does not inoculate them from the human proclivity to be mistaken or corrupt – as attested to by countless historical examples, from the decades-long promotion of a deeply flawed Food Pyramid in the United States to the tragic legacy of Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union.
More to the point, the expert perspective is inherently limited. The lifetime pursuit of specialized competence within a narrowly defined subfield does not prepare experts for the sort of holistic big picture thinking of which a leader must be capable.
Even the very intelligent are susceptible to the phenomenon of inattentional blindness. In one famous psychological experiment, participants who were asked to count the ball passes in a video of two teams playing ball became so focused on the task at hand that they missed the gorilla walking through the scene. Our vision literally changes based on where we focus. This is the hamartia of expertise, and it is why no one should be in any hurry to appoint a scientist as supreme leader.
An expert criminologist, for example, could theoretically recommend abandoning the Fourth Amendment or diverting our entire national budget to policing in order to catch more violent criminals. It is not the job of a leader to “listen to the experts” here without taking all other considerations into account.
Similarly, an epidemiologist who recommends widespread lockdowns and other extreme measures to slow the ball passes of coronavirus transmission may miss the gorillas of economic devastation, suicide, drug overdoses, and deaths from cancer and other medical issues gone untreated – not to mention violations of our civil liberties, which should never, ever be dismissed lightly. Life is far more than a great game of whack-a-mole against infectious disease.
As Henry Hazlitt wrote, economists must look “not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy,” and trace its consequences “not merely for one group but for all groups.”
A good policymaker, in other words, must see both the ball passes and the gorilla. This is what Joe Biden will be called on to do if elected president, and a deferral of his duty to the experts will ill suit him. Experts ought to be given a fair but skeptical hearing, but final policy decisions should be based on an array of competing imperatives, within the bounds of government set for us by the Constitution.
— Niels Bohr
Read the book “ The Experts Speak” .That will make you think long and hard about experts !!
"Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
There have been many attempts to create a technocracy. Such govt systems would be the most murderous imaginable. The Communists like to call their system “scientific”. Eugenics is another pseudo-science that was believed to be the latest in “science”. It resulted in the death camps of Germany and the killing fields on Cambodia.
Physical scientists have made great strides in making life easier, as well as creating the most horrible weapons ever and then turning these weapons over to a Stalin or Roosevelt. They have done nothing to solve the perennial problems of war and oppression.
Another genius idea from “scientists” is putting drugs in the water to “calm” (read make more malleable) the population. Heck even today pseudo-scientists still recommend electric shock to “reset” the brain and they aren’t arrested and imprisoned.
We live in a technological barbarism. “Scientists” haven’t had a clue about how to find the way out. Putting them in charge of a society would be a grave blunder.
I watcvhed parts of Joe’s Atlanta play group...
1. He boasted that if he wins GA he “wins everything”
2. The video only showed him while he was speaking but the honking and shouts might have been taped/canned...or made louder somehow...they werent shown during the speech...they might have all gone home before he started...
“I Would Rather Be Governed By the First 2,000 People in the Telephone Directory than by the Harvard University Faculty.”
William F. Buckley
Joe sounded like an MSNBC anchor with TDS.
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
It wasn’t that long ago that the Greatest Scientific Minds of the World knew the World was FLAT!!
Still missing the point. Science is amoral. Science can say, for example, that it would be a good idea to have 3 billion people on the planet instead of 7 billion. That would be scientific but immoral if implemented. That's why we are ruled mostly by lawyers and not scientists. It's actually a huge step up.
ping
bump
As Dennis Prager has so accurately noted, we should seek out experts for information and data from which we may make informed decisions. There is no reason to think that experts have any more wisdom than anyone else which is why experts, powered by their knowledge of limited subject matter, must never be in a position to develop and direct public policy simply because of their intellect. We have been living the price of that practice for the past eight months (and counting) ...
So BiteMe will let scientist run the country. What happens when Scientist decide:
1. Man is evil and needs to be removed from the planet.
2. God is dead and religion is wrong and a waste of money.
3. Capitalism is bad.
4. Only scientist should be in charge of government.
5. Scientist should be treated as rock stars; and women need to fawn all over them.
6. All Laws need to be revised by Scientists.
etc...
7. Ordinary Americans, by simply living their lives and raising their families, are destroying the world.
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