“Just Trust the Experts!”
One of the more troubling observable trends in online discussions today is a growing dereliction of duty with respect to critical thinking. It usually takes the form of a fallacious appeal to authority. During the present “pandemic,”1 social media is rife with fallacious reasoning of this kind, where voices of dissent are ridiculed for being “Facebook Doctors,” “Facebook Lawyers,” or “Internet Experts.”2 Along with this derisive name calling, there are typically calls for the dissenter to “trust the experts” or “let the experts do their job.” Belittling any criticism of, for instance, the actions of authorities during a wave of riots, or the claims of medical experts during a “pandemic,” superficially removes the belittler’s responsibility to love God with all of one’s mind, and love his neighbor as himself.
The problem with the appeal to authority being made is that in many cases, though admittedly not all, the criticism of the authorities in question have to do with the rational coherence of a particular idea, set of ideas, report, or series of reports. Such criticisms do not require one to be an expert on the subject being covered, seeing as in these instances the critics are deriving their data from the experts themselves. Instead, they require one to have an elementary grasp of the laws of logic, a love for the truth, and a detestation of what is false.
Logical lethargy is not a neutral practice, but is sin. As Psalm 1:1-2 declares –
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
The Holy Spirit tells us that the righteous man’s meditation is on God’s Word day and night, thereby implying that there is no time of the day, and no activity during that time, that is to be devoid of thinking, consideration, meditation, rumination, and examination rooted in the Word of God. Consequently, the increasingly popular retort to critics of the experts is not only immoral, but irrational. In this article, we will look at some reasons as to why this is so.
Self-Referential Absurdity
To begin with, if one can only speak about x if he is an expert on it, then this applies to his expertise rule (ER, hereafter) as well. In order for one to speak about the ER, he must be an expert on who qualifies to speak about the ER. If he is not an expert on the ER, then he cannot speak about the ER. If he is not an expert on the ER are we to simply take his word for it that the ER is a legitimate rule we must follow when discussing any subject? By declaring the legitimacy of the ER, and not being an expert himself, he would be violating the ER.
However, if one can only speak about x if he is an expert on x, this is an implicit knowledge claim about the nature of x (viz. x is of such a nature that speaking about it requires expertise). This, in turn, implies that one has to be an expert on x before he can tell others that only experts can speak on that matter. If he is not an expert on x, then he cannot speak about x.
Moreover, if one has to be an expert before he can speak about x, but the process of learning necessarily involves one speaking about x before one is an expert (e.g. forming hypotheses about x, debating former and present hypotheses about x, etc), then he could not ever become an expert on x. In fact, no one could.
If we assume the ER to be true, therefore, we have to draw the conclusion that we cannot ever convey that knowledge to others without being experts ourselves, which is, however, an impossibility. The absurdity of the ER should be plain to see here.
Category Confusion & A Fallacious Appeal to Authority
Assuming that the ER is not fraught with logical difficulties, however, there is yet another problem the belittler faces. If the critic’s argument takes for granted the expertise of the proponents of x, but finds that conclusions about x are not logically justifiable, or that statements about x are self-contradictory, then what is at issue is not the data itself but the logical coherence of the claims being made about x or x’s data. To belittle the critic for not being familiar with all the available data, when he is not making an argument against the reliability of the data presented as, and confirmed by the experts to be, “fact,” is to commit a category error by treating the critic’s argument as one being made against the factuality of the experts’ data. If the critic assumes that what is asserted about x in terms of relevant data is true, but criticizes the experts for their logical incoherence, then what must be challenged is not the critic’s knowledge regarding x but his claim that the experts’ claims are not logically coherent (i.e. they are self-contradictory) or logically justified (i.e. they have been argued for invalidly).
As mentioned at the onset of this article, moreover, the appeal to an expert in this particular case is a fallacious appeal to an expert. The reason for this is that the argument made by the critic does not depend upon his familiarity with the relevant data as a whole, but instead depends upon his familiarity with the elementary principles of sound reasoning. If the critic is wrong, in other words, he must be shown to be wrong with respect to his logical analysis. The question of his expertise in the field of x is completely irrelevant to his argument.
Theological Problems
As we bring this article to a close, we need to draw the reader’s attention to the biggest problem with the ER, namely that it results in a denial of God’s sovereignty and omniscience. That this is the case is clear when we consider that logic is, as Gordon H. Clark puts it, the way that God thinks. The laws of logic are not human constructs; they are eternal truths that stand in judgment over all of our reasoning. Thus, if an expert’s reasoning is exempt from logical scrutiny, then that expert’s reasoning is literally not subject to the rule of God, for the laws of logic are divinely revealed truths that authoritatively judge the thoughts of men as either true or false.3 This necessarily implies the blasphemous idea that there exists a class of persons over whom God cannot exercise epistemic, sovereign rulership – namely, the experts whose findings are, apparently, not subject to logical scrutiny. Put concisely –
If experts are not subject to logical scrutiny, then they are not subject to the Sovereign rule of God. But if the Sovereign rule of God does not extend to a person or group of persons, then it is not Sovereign. Thus, if the experts are not subject to logical scrutiny, this implies that God is not Sovereign.
What is more, the idea that the experts are not subject to logical scrutiny further implies that there is a class of propositions which is excluded from the judgment of the laws of logic. This is a problem because the laws of logic are formally universal in scope; they are universal knowledge claims. But if the laws of logic are formally universal in scope, but are not so materially, then they are false. And if they are false, then God, who has revealed them, is not omniscient. More concisely –
The laws of logic are divinely revealed formally universal knowledge claims. But if there is a class of propositions which cannot be judged by the laws of logic, then that class of propositions is not covered by the laws of logic. This implies that while the laws of logic are formally universal in scope, they are not materially universal in scope; and this renders them false. And if they are divinely revealed universal knowledge claims that are not truly universal, and this renders them false, then God, who revealed them to men, is not omniscient.
The problems here should be evident to the regenerate man or woman. God is Sovereign. He is Omniscient. Thus, any belief that implies he is not is false, and a demonic assault on his character. Now the belief that experts are exempt from logical analysis is one that implies that God is neither Sovereign nor Omniscient; therefore, it must be rejected as false by all Christians.
Concluding Remarks
It is neither prudent, nor loving toward one’s neighbor, nor reverent toward God to abandon logical analysis because one is not an expert on x, whatever x may be. If the experts who are speaking on x are contradicting themselves, or using fallacious arguments to draw conclusions about x, then it is your responsibility, Christian, to acknowledge they are uttering falsehoods. You don’t need to be a scholar to point out that a person is contradicting himself or arguing fallaciously. You are made in the image of God, and you have the mind of Christ. Hear what the experts have to say, grant them the benefit of a doubt when they talk about the data they’ve collected. However, if they contradict themselves, if they use fallacious argumentation to prove a point, or if they claim to be beyond the jurisdiction of logical scrutiny (which is impossible), you have a responsibility to reject their claims on that basis.
Soli Deo Gloria.
1 See Berrien, Hank. “Following Death Percentage Decline, CDC Says We’re On ‘Epidemic Threshold’,” The Daily Wire, July 7, 2020, https://www.dailywire.com/news/amid-percentage-of-deaths-having-declined-cdc-admits-coronavirus-on-verge-of-non-epidemic-status?.
2 For example, see Moe, Kristen. “COVID-19 Conspiracy Theorists Are Victims Of The Dunning-Kruger Effect,” Scary Mommy, April 24, 2020, https://www.scarymommy.com/dunning-kruger-effect/.
3 This is true respecting not merely the content of one’s thoughts (i.e. whether or not a particular proposition is true or false), but the structure of one’s reasoning as well, given that the presentation of an argument in favor of x could be reduced to the proposition – “It is the case that my argument leads to conclusion y about x.” For more on this see, Diaz, Hiram R. “The Truth Value of Valid and Invalid Inferences?,” Involuted Speculations, May 5, 2014, https://involutedgenealogies.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/the-truth-value-of-valid-and-invalid-inferences/.