The Rising Anger Against Expertise

U.S. Naval War College professor Tom Nichols explores what he sees as a growing divide between experts and the American citizenry. An expert in Russian and national intelligence, Nichols is becoming increasingly alarmed by the anger towards experts and the increasing insistence that someone's personal opinion amounts to a fact or universal truth.

"I fear we are moving beyond a natural skepticism regarding expert claims to the death of the ideal of expertise itself: a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laypeople, teachers and students, knowers and wonderers—in other words, between those with achievement in an area and those with none."

Tom Nichols, professor of national security affairs at the United States Naval War College and an adjunct professor in the Harvard Extension School. His book is "The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters." He tweets @RadioFreeTom.