"There is still very limited awareness of the nature of the threat. This is an area of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits. It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged."
These are not my words, but those of Rachel Carson in Silent Spring, published in 1962. She was talking about pesticides, but these words hit me so hard I stopped and read them few times. It seems her words transcend time and circumstance.
In this respect, the world has not changed. We suffer terribly from tunnel vision when it comes to our own spheres of experience and influence. Take a problem, show it to to ten people with different specialties and you get ten different solutions to slightly different versions of the original problem.
So why is this a bad thing, and how is it relevant in the context of our modern issues? Take climate change as an example. The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is too great, and this could lead to bad things. We have to balance this with the need to continue to produce energy. We turn to experts to help us. What is the result?
Physicist: Well these are the raw numbers: we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2020 and reduce global energy consumption by 40%. Off you go then.
Economist: By making the non polluting options cheaper and punishing those who pollute with fines we can rely on the market to remove the heavy polluters.
Politician: Well we have to make sure that we can afford it, we avoid impacting the public too much and we continue to be voted into power.
Oil Tycoon: We can keep using oil if we research carbon capture; and we can always invest resources in unconventional sources of oil like sands and shale to keep the world running.
So you can see the difficulties we have here. They all accept climate change is happening (for the most part - even if the oil tycoon fails to believe it, he still plays along now that he has no choice), but they see different problems. Due to different problems, we get different solutions.
The physicist is stating the problem exactly, but he misses that what he suggests may not be possible. The economist understands the problem, but defines the solution in terms of his knowledge. The politician is very concerned, but feels he has to juggle too many things, tries to please everyone and goes nowhere. The oil tycoon wants to stay in business.
These people need to talk to each other. The politicians have the power, but they simply cannot be expected to know everything to come to a completely informed decision. They turn to experts. Does this help? Well as we have just seen, the diversity of the experts chosen is as important as the quality of the experts.
Everything is connected in this field. The days of the expert are gone: time to herald the days of interdisciplinary thinking.
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Penguin Classics. Quoted text on page 29.
2 days ago
2 comments:
Well said, Michael. I often take it one step further and argue that the way we report news and spread information is actually very one-dimensional rather than learning about things in relation to their interconnections with the rest of nature/society/civilization. Interdisciplinary work will continue to evolve and eventually become the standard due to the fact it makes so much sense.
I would say though that I do not think that the "days of the expert are over." On the contrary, I think the world has grown to a level of complexity that makes the age of the renaissance man being impossible. Having focused experts allow us to realize the intricacies of problems and issues we face. What it does mean is that we have a greater need for coordinators and orchestrators--professionals that know enough about differen professions to direct conversation amongst them.
Architects actually work largely in this capacity. Many people think that architects draw a lot of pretty pictures, but really the architect is responsible for the coordination of the design process between different entities (none of which he is an expert in.) Mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, interior designers, landscape architects, structural engineers, security experts... the list goes on. Knowing the interconnections and opportunities for efficiency make this relationship possible.
It does sound as though your role is exactly what I describe - knowing enough about each aspect of the interconnections of your job to be able to understand those who are "experts" in those fields.
I don't meant that there will be no more experts. I mean that being an expert in a single field will no longer be enough. I want to be expert in a couple of useful fields, but also very knowledgeable about other fields which directly impact mine. Expertise should evolve to include not only your own subject but a cross section of relevant subjects.
This is how we'll really tackle all the global problems, which aren't in the domain of a single field. I don't like the idea of a situation where we have experts in their fields and orchestrators who know little about all of them. My vision for the future is that we can do it all.
Post a Comment