Week 15 Reflection -- Expert Failure

Trusting Experts

Dr. Koppl in his book and lecture, Expert Failure, harps on the fact that experts are people too. He shows examples of experts failing time and time again. Despite these evident errors, many people still trust them. Why is this? The issue with experts in society is that it is not as simple as everyone should trust experts or everyone should ignore experts. If everyone trusted experts, they could be lead to disappointment. This is because people put large faith and standards in experts because of the value society places in them. It is true that experts are people to and this is is why they cannot fulfill all expectations from people and society as a whole put on them. This is not at all saying that there cannot be cases of expert failure that should completely take away someone's expert title on the basis of large expectations on a single individual. Part of the reason that so many see experts as the final say in answers is because they see the rest, or at least most, of society trusting experts. It also makes sense that people should be weary of experts. Questions are good, it shows learning and caring. Therefore it is good to question experts or do personal research before consulting a so called "expert". However, the discussion of trusting experts will continue to go in circles as different people with place different value in experts and the definition of experts varying from person to person.