I know the weaknesses of the terms Expert and expertocracy, and am willing to consider all alternatives.
An Expert is a person with training and, more importantly, credentials, in an subject considered necessary by rulers. They are the persons who provide rulers with the “science” the rulers use to justify their actions. The rulers are oligarchs and top bureaucrats, both of which include Experts promoted beyond their expertise. Hence expertocracy.
The key is that, although there is much cynicism among them, many rulers really do worship science, or what they think science is. Others, it’s true, seek out scientists, or “researchers”, for Machiavellian purposes, but a fair portion do want “proof” their desired “solutions” for some problem are the correct ones.
People can almost always be found among persons with expertise who will provide this “proof.” These people become Experts. This alignment with the ruling class builds the Expert class. Money and power flows to these Experts. Experts then, through time, organically form a cadre, whose main purpose becomes, like in all bureaucracies, to sustain its own class.
Experts become gatekeepers: that is, some Experts are appointed as expertise police. Those who question Expert Consensuses are called “deniers”, and worse. The motives of questioners are always under suspicion, and the motives often claimed to be monetary. Which at least proves Experts have no sense of humor.
Crucial is the Consensus building process. Here is a perfect example of how this works using “peer-reviewed” “research” from a “top” journal:
“Who are the 3 Per Cent? The Connections Among Climate Change Contrarians” by Young and Fitz, in the British Journal of Political Science.
Abstract begins: “Despite 97 per cent of scientists agreeing on anthropogenic global warming”.
Now this “97%” is like many woke statistics you hear often, like “5 out of every 4 college women are sexually assaulted”. They become almost a mantra.
Here, for example, is one take down of this silly number: The Consensus That Wasn’t: Less Than 1%, Not 97%
Most interestingly, Young and Fitz’s 97% is not the same as the original 97%. The 97 figure becomes, then, like other mysterious numbers used in politics are quickly formed and never budge no matter what evidence is adduced.
The key is this: Experts in one field always take the word of Experts in other fields. This is how almost all “fact checks” in an expertocracy function—by taking what other Experts say as unquestionable.
Indeed, that is the basis for this paper. Our PolySci “reseachers” are ignorant of the thermodynamics of fluid flow of differentially heated rotating sphere, so they must, and do, take what Experts in that field say as gospel. The irony here is a thick as flies on an outhouse toilet, because our polysci Experts point at others without expertise (like themselves) for their temerity on questioning the climate Consensus.
Cross-field Expert agreement is Step One. Step Two is asking how others with or without training in thermodynamics could possibly question the Expert Consensus. How dare they? How could they? They allow non-Experts to agree with Experts, but they do not allow disagreement. They also do not allow those with training to question Experts.
The implicit assumption is Experts are correct (in all things) because they are Experts. Thus those that disagree are wrong by definition.
So our “researchers” hunt for clues for what drives deniers. Forbidden as a clue are any observations that disprove Experts, superior alternate theories that question Experts, and so on.
Therefore, Denier motivation must necessarily be ulterior and suspicious. As above, money is usually blamed, and so are certain psychological tendencies of the deniers. Reasons are always found for denial, and the reasons don’t have to be true: aspersions and crude guesses are sufficient. Especially if other “researchers” have made the same guesses.
In the end, this paper (and many like it) adds to the bulk of “research” on the topic of global warming. This paper, which says nothing intelligible on global warming, becomes added proof of global warming because, it is reasoned, these Experts would not have written such a paper if Expert theories on global warming were false. Therefore global warming must be true.
In this way, Experts who promulgate other Expert theories become True Believers. They all convince each other, the proof being that each other is convinced. It is an immense scientific circle—of some kind.
That is how Science works in an expertocracy.
I don’t expect to convince you on the basis of just one paper. But I have many, many: there is no shortage. I will have one tomorrow on the coronadoom.
(I also have a chapter on this in Everything You Believe Is Wrong. After you have shown how an argument is wrong, you can ask why.)
Buy my new book and own your enemies: Everything You Believe Is Wrong.
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When I stumbled into working for a large corporation back in the 80’s and within a year or two…
H.R. presented the concept of three percent deadwood
Not long after I experience our first layoff (well that took care of the first three percent)
Schoolhouse Rock
[Verse: Bob Dorough]
Somewhere in the ancient mystic trinity
You get three as a magic number
The past and the present and the future
The faith and hope and charity
The heart and the brain and the body
Give you three as a magic number
It takes three legs to make a tripod or to make a table stand
And it takes three wheels to make a vehicle called a tricycle
Every triangle has three corners, every triangle has three sides
No more, no less, you don’t have to guess
When it’s three, you can see
It’s a magic number
These people are magicians look how they made the flu disappear last year.
Once upon a time if your barn blew away it was your neighborhood witch
now it’s your SUV.
Is there a collective term for Experts? I mean, we have a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a school of fish, etc. A faction of experts, perhaps? Or maybe an untenable of experts? 😉 Ideas?
Book: ‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science’
Book: ‘Human Caused Global Warming, the Biggest Deception in History’
https://www.technocracy.news/dr-tim-ball-on-climate-lies-wrapped-in-deception-smothered-with-delusion/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPzpPXuASY8
“They all convince each other, the proof being that each other is convinced. It is an immense scientific circle—of some kind.”
Sorta like a PCR test, where you take a small bit of nonsense, amplify it a millionfold, get nonsense on stilts, and use it to destroy civilization. Modernism in a nutshell.
Speaking of nut’s hells, the “study” Briggs highlights here was authored by a couple of girls who, in saner societies, would be raising children and making strong homes — the foundation of healthy civilizations, but now are reduced to debt slaves spinning hamster wheels in academic sausage factories, the poor fools.
PaulH
Cabal, junta, syndicate, cartel, consortium, cadre, clique, take your pick.
There are other activities that occur in “circles” but it isn’t polite to name it in mixed company.
@PaulH
I think “coven of experts” sounds pretty good.
I was always told that “expert” is a compound word where “ex” is an unknown quantity and “spurt” is a drip under pressure. Over time the hyphen was lost and the spelling changed….
“They all convince each other, the proof being that each other is convinced. It is an immense scientific circle—of some kind.”
The first level is like that
i) A publishes an assertion (based on a flawed study).
ii) B, C and D repeat the assertion (citing A as a source), probably in a distorted way.
iii) E, F and G repeat the distorted assertion (citing B, C and D)
The second level is that everybody else repeats the assertion without citing: it is a known fact now. It is public knowledge.
This is the same procedure as the one used during Middle Ages to prove the existence of the monopods and other fantastic creatures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopod_(creature)
Is the Expert Coven code of silence breaking?
See the article in The Atlantic from 16 Dec 2021 on CDC’s fake “science” “facts” used to force kids to wear face diapers:
“The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School
The agency’s director has said, repeatedly, that schools without mask mandates have triple the risk of COVID outbreaks. That claim is based on very shaky science.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/mask-guidelines-cdc-walensky/621035/
Like most/all cliques of authoritarians in history, their initial consensus will dissolve as they begin in-fighting for prestige/power in their new kingdom. Trotsky became a pariah, and Stalin sought to crush him after Lenin died.
“Is there a collective term for Experts?”
CATASTROPHE
As in… “A catastrophe of experts.”
Briggs himself established this term, and he is an expert on experts! Therefore it stands to reason that you agree ONLY with his term and set aside all others!
Now if you think things aren’t yet so bad, just wait until these catastrophes of experts organize themselves into a democracy!
There is a little expert in everyone. And by repeating and following expert advice uncritically, you may someday discover what kind of expert you’ll grow up to be! Soon you’ll be voting on policy too and finally become part of a democratic concensus!
Many good suggestions for the collective of experts. How about using comedy to shame the experts? Say, A Clown Car of Experts, or A Keystone Kops of Experts, or A Benny Hill of Experts. A Mr. Magoo of Experts? Three Stooges of Experts? Nah, there are orders of magnitude more than three of them, like an Infestation of Experts.
The expert Mechanics teacher at the high school I attended blew the transmission out of a car when he would not acknowledge the issue with the clutch swing arm that I pointed out to him. “I am the teacher and you are the student” he said. I quit that class the same day. They literally blew the transmission to pieces a week later.
The expertocarcy has the added dimension of girlsplaining:
What Schrödinger’s cat REALLY means..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8bn-NXgOOk&t=649s
This Paradox Proves Einstein’s Special Relativity..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUwpOWOg0fk&t=44s
All expertise reach a final indisputable zenith which cannot be argued with by any rational human being (they define what rational is.)
What is that zenith called?
THE COMPUTER MODEL!
Pandemic of Experts.
Young and Fizzy weren’t concerned with Experts in their paper. “…[O]ur aim is to create a profile and look for commonalities among individuals who all share contrarian views…”
It’s the contrarians who are targeted by these political peabrains. What did they find?
Surprise, surprise. The contrarians are Old White Men.
“A total of 93 per cent of the climate change contrarians on the list were male.”
“…87 per cent of individuals on the list (for which data were available) were born prior to 1957, making most contrarians sixty-five years of age or older.”
“A total of 81 per cent of the climate change contrarians received their highest level of college degree (that is, Bachelor’s, Master’s, PhD, or level of degree relative to institution, location, and/or area of study) in 1985 or prior.” [Hello, that means White]
They also found that these Old White Men contrarians had sold, for big payola, their integrity to Capitalists.
“A total of 82 per cent of all individuals in our dataset, including 100 per cent of individuals deemed climate experts, have affiliations with industries and/or organizations involved in the CCCM [climate change counter-movement]”
So successful Old White Men with degrees are the bulk of those who think crackpots like Young and Fizzy are worthless tools and propagandists for the Greatest Hoax in History.
Thank God for Old White Men. If we weren’t holding it together, society and civilization would crumble like stale bread in a blender.
@Mocheirge
Good one.
Definition of Consensus: agreement within a Coven of Hexperts.
Italian Archbishop Vigano shared with The Gateway Pundit his transcript and audio message to the American people this week.
Italian Archbishop Vigano sent a message to the American people. He continues to speak out against the globalist threat this Christmas season
He shared his message below:
DEAR AMERICAN PEOPLE, DEAR FRIENDS, for two years now, a global coup has been carried out all over the world, planned for some time by an elite group of conspirators enslaved to the interests of international high finance. This coup was made possible by an emergency pandemic that is based on the premise of a virus that has a mortality rate almost analogous to that of any other seasonal flu virus, on the delegitimization and prohibition of effective treatments, and on the distribution of an experimental gene serum which is obviously ineffective, and which also clearly carries with it the danger of serious and even lethal side effects. We all know how much the mainstream media has contributed to supporting the insane pandemic narrative, the interests that are at stake, and the goals of these groups of power: reducing the world population, making those who survive chronically ill, and imposing forms of control that violate the fundamental rights and natural liberties of citizens. And yet, two years after this grotesque farce started, which has claimed more victims than a war and destroyed the social fabric, national economies, and the very foundations of the rule of law, nothing has changed in the policies of Nations and their response to the so-called pandemic. Archbishop Vigano shared with The Gateway Pundit his transcript and audio message to the American people this week.
“Pandemic of Experts”
This is also good and fitting. When future children ask why, they will receive an expert answer.
So, they can’t count… https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/truth-we-have-no-idea-cdc-data-missed-millions-unvaccinated-americans
Vexxines fail: https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/weve-now-killed-close-to-twice-as
So, is the Poopy-pants in chief going to have another tantrum tomorrow?
As for the Supreme Court, I don’t think they want a lawless society. If they don’t rule according to the Constitution, whatever bribes they got won’t protect them.
A group of experts is called a “Fake”, as in: A large fake of experts agreed that the data were agreeable.
JWM
Plague of Experts
Bane of Experts
Mischief of Experts
Rat King of Experts
From https://www.reference.com/pets-animals/group-rats-called-ee03ed73d4daeb59
“Mischief” is the designation for a group of rats. “Colony,” “plague,” “pack” and “swarm” are also suitable names. A rat king is an unusual phenomenon where a large number of rats become intertwined by their tails due to extreme conditions and inordinate amounts of blood, dirt and excrement.
An old bloke told me once that if you take the word “expert” for how it sounds (ex- spurt) it tells you what it means. An “ex” is a has-been and a “spurt” is a drip under pressure. Interestingly, if you take a spurt from a water pistol, for example, you cannot put it back into the nozzle and re constitute the integrity of the water in the reservoir from which it came (from which it is “ex”). I think that the prefix “ex” should include failed or wannabe spurts.
There’s another adage that might apply here: “Those that can’t (spurt) teach it”. That applies to all sorts of “experts” from poor little Greta and Gore and Gates and Fauci and Schwab and Soros and Poope Francis and Prince Philip and on and on ……………
Yair, I know, some of you will be asking what’s his excellency Wm Briggs doing trying to teach the occult intricacies of statistics to the irredeemably profane likes of me. Well, I don’t know; I’d best leave it to the man himself to explain his unfathomable magnanimity.
Addendum.
I suppose that the expertocracy builds consensus by taking advantage of the likes of me. As far as statistics goes I’ve got a fair idea of what an average or a mean is and all the rest of it is pretty irrelevant to me and where I am. I just take Briggs’ word for it that “p values” means something other than the value of a good pee when you need it.
philemon
What a surprise! Turns out the experts count shots the same way they count votes!
As I suspected, the panic on the part of elites to push vexxes more and more under more extreme pressure is likely because the numbers of vexxed are lower than they like to admit, which is great newz because everything is fine and their propaganda arms are useless.
philemon
Seems the UK is lying about their vexxined dopes numbers too!
https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/12/17/23-million-not-vaccinated-in-england/
Johnno: Well, they did the fake casedemic thing (Italy came clean about that, major “with Covid” reduction in reported death rate).
Why wouldn’t they lie about the vexxined numbers as well?
Number 1: Exaggerate percentage vexxed so that more people will get vexxed due to “peer pressure”, aka ad populam fallacy.
Number 2: Crap, the public is beginning to notice that being vexxed is no good! We need a diversion!
Number 3: We need to persuade the vexxed that all their problems are due to the unvexxed! There are way more unvexxed than we originally counted. That’ll work, right? Right?