Fireside Breakdowns

S2 | SS27 : The Death of Expertise


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We’re back after two expected weeks off, and one unexpected week of illness! This week, we’re breaking down something commonly referred to as “the death of expertise” - open antagonism toward established knowledge. How did we get to the point where people who have literal and actual college degrees in complicated fields are placed on the same level of authority as opinionated politicians or folks who are moderately competent Google searchers? 

That’s an excellent question. We would love to tell you. (Unashamed reference to Elyse Myers, who Robin thinks is very funny.)

Also included in this episode: the Dunning-Kruger effect, vaccine hesitancy, and Cliff Claven.

In this episode we mention a great series on vaccines, and the anti-vaccine movement, from a podcast called Endless Thread. The series is long, so we’re only linking to episode 3 (which is most relevant to this conversation) here, but we highly recommend the whole thing. https://open.spotify.com/episode/1pHujj1pFYQgPoZb1LGo15?si=7bbfe109cbd542cc

We also mentioned Dr. Noc, who we follow on Instagram for his stellar science communication. https://www.instagram.com/dr.noc/


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You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

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Fireside BreakdownsBy Robin Strathdee and Jon Atkinson

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