I just finished reading a book called “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against established knowledge and why it matters” by Tom Nicholes. The book explores the fairly recent phenomenon of using the label “Expert” and “Intellectual” as a negative attribute
A quote from the book:
We can take being wrong about the kind of bird we just saw in our backyard, or who the first person to circumnavigate the globe, but we cannot tolerate being wrong about the concept of facts that we rely upon to govern how we live our lives.
This made so much sense! People use religion to govern how they live their lives. They cannot tolerate any challenge to this from “So called Intellectuals“. So when an “expert” in astrophysics tells a believing Mormon that the moon is 238,855 miles away (on average), they have no problem with this as it does not challenge any fact that they use to govern their life with.
Now take another expert, say in archaeology, that has just as much education as the above astrophysicist. She says that there is absolutely no evidence for the the Book of Mormon, This is challenging a fact that contributes to how a Mormon governs their life, so this expert becomes suspect. Change the expert to a DNA specialist, a geologist, or a nutritionist. They have all been minimized in one way or another through our church history as they challenge the fundamental aspects of our religion (BofM, Age of Earth, and WofW).
It sounds like what we do in challenging these experts is just human nature. The book did not talk about religion at all, but it appears to be natural to reject an expert that challenges our very soul. But is using titles like “So Called Intellectuals” really the right way to confront the problem? What if every time a secular newspaper, when referring to church leaders, used “President Nelson, the so called prophet”, or “Elder Oaks, a so called apostle”. This sounds very condescending, and the members of the church would be up in arms about it, claiming it is disrespectful. It is also disrespectful to the experts in the world to belittle them just because they teach something that threatens our beliefs.
How do you treat experts that contradict your belief systems? Do you minimize them, or write them off as a so called intellectual?
Wheat & Tares 
I wison to a audible book recently that covered this exact topic with regards to global warming. It discussed how global warming and ‘experts’ on global warming are the perfect storm for disbelief in terms and how the brain processes information and handles its own biases. Super interesting stuff. I imagine religious truths vs. Experts fall under the same paradigm.
Widen = listened. Giant fail on my phone’s voice to text.
Widen = wison = listened. If I get it wrong this time I’m not fixing it again!
People enjoy having their loosely-held beliefs challenged, but not their tightly-held beliefs. That’s why faith crisis is so painful. To question tightly-held beliefs you have to rewire your neural pathways.
In the LDS faith, one of the big reasons we hold our beliefs too tightly is the social pressure to use rhetoric of certainty. To feel like we belong, we get up there at F&T meeting and say “I know [such-and-such] is true” with absolute certainty about things that we can’t possibly have absolute certainty about. We have been taught to take a vague and nonspecific feeling of transcendence and to generalize it to mean that ALL of the church’s teachings are true.
The problem is, by getting up and professing certainty, we then become even MORE motivated to be persuaded that it’s true. It’s harder to back down, to question. We can’t be open to the possibility that we were wrong because we publicly expressed certainty before. I think it’s actually one of the most toxic aspects of our culture.
It reminds me of that little allegory about the emperors new clothes… All those people getting up there and professing “I know the emperor has clothes!” The experts are like the child in that allegory, telling us that the emperor is naked, and we just dismiss them.
There are two different elements
Though I’m going to start with a personal story.
I started studying Biblical criticism in college and hit the Germans writing on how Jericho never existed about the same time it was discovered.
As for the confluence of the hymns to Ba’l and the psalms, I studied it in the perspective of the contrasts (eg Ba’l fails every summer, God never fails) and the the higher criticism that the psalms were just stolen whole cloth (the position that they were working a riff off well known poetic forms is now well accepted).
So the intellectual approach was clearly wrong (and anti-Semitic).
Next I ran into people who were harshly critical of John Welch. They were “intellectuals” though their publications and education was not up to his level, they were part of the same coffee klatch with each other.
Reminded me of a guy from an Ivy League school who asserted that his degree qualified for the specific job experience he claimed but did not have.
Both groups are more fascile than intellectual and deserve the label.
It seems like you are making generalizations about those who believe in their faith criticizing or questioning someone else’s opinions on facts, even people publishing a book and claiming to be experts.
I know many very faithful, Book of Mormon believing scientists and scholars and intellectuals that use their education and skills to support religion, just as some do not support religion.
Why are those who believe all lumped together as writing off science or intellectuals?
My experience is that such broad generalizations are not fairly representing many faithful groups.
I would also add, it is difficult to know who are experts and really know truth, and who are theorizing new diet plans and what really works in our lives. So…if I am skeptical of some new theories, it comes from my past experience of hearing lots of new ideas that don’t sound right to me, and don’t hold up over time. But I do not just write them off in the name of God…but I do use my life experiences to judge new ideas I hear…I think we all do.
In addition… religion does not get validated by science but by living it’s principles and by internally seeking what feels right for us to use as a compass for choices in life. Whether the Book of Mormon is a literal history with archeology accepting it or if it is a midrash or symbolic story guide…it can be used as scripture either way. While geography theories and DNA analysis is interesting and good for me to be aware of, they do not serve as the foundation for my faith.
Science and religion live in different realms. They don’t need to be at odds. They are both embraced by many many Latter-Day Saints and religious groups globally. While some religious people are closed minded…I don’t think it can be generalized as all religious people reject science and new theories of intellectuals.
“She says that there is absolutely no evidence for the the Book of Mormon.”
I’d just point out how silly this statement is, how anyone who would make such a statement is uniformed about what evidence is, and dismiss them out of hand – not because their opinion conflicts with mine, but rather because to say such a flatly false statement indicates that they are using their expertise the way a drunk uses a lamppost – for support instead of for illumination.
You can argue the absence of proof, which everyone would agree with (there are good reasons, theologically, why there would be no proof), and you can even argue (though I disagree) that the evidence on balance favors non-historicity, but to argue no evidence is to either be too foolish of too ideologically driven to be worthy or serious consideration.
I’ve known many legitimate experts in many fields. Nothing about their expertise magically overcomes the foibles we all share. Some are intelligent and fair-minded, and some are ideological and close-minded.
I’m enjoying the comments.
This cuts both ways, which is why people are rightly skeptical. The “experts” themselves reject data and ideas that don’t fit with their core belief system. You see this in the areas of politics, women’s studies, religion (or atheism), climate science, evolution, and economics. It is rare when someone can see past the confines of their belief system.
I have a very bright left leaning friend. He imputes racist motives over and over again. To him it seems obvious and real. I can see his bias as plain as day, but he is blind.
This is likely the type of blindness that Jesus condemned, blindness from unquestioned following of religion to the point that you are blinded.
We should all realize we are blinded. It is part of the human condition and then work to overcome it. We should all realize we see the world through bad lenses and listen to other people and contemplate to fix our own lenses. Fixing others lenses is a fools errand. You can live them and gently help them, but they have to fix their own lenses.
Skepticism is the correct path when you meet a blind guide. Blind guides usually speak as authorities. They have closed minds. It is apparent in how they present their ideas. They have often felt emotionally injured. They have big egos. They are not reasonable or open to new ideas. They speak in absolutes not in probabilities.
Some LDS figures come across this way as do some of their enemies. I take them all with a grain of salt. That is part of what is stunning about Jesus’ approach.
I wonder if the author can see the LDS “lens” but assumes the experts have no lens and so should be more accepted.
What some people don’t understand is that scientific discovery starts with a hypothesis and then requires carefully structured studies to prove or disprove the hypothesis.
Scientists can (and do) disagree on the findings of one particular study and may then conduct their own study to demonstrate what they believe to be true. It is only after numerous studies that the evidence emerges to either prove or disprove the hypothesis. This is particularly true when studying human subjects. For example, this is why sometimes nutrition experts tell us one thing and then later on back-off and take us another direction. People who don’t understand the scientific process zero in on a single study without taking in the whole picture.
I used to look at the scriptures in a literal way. Not so much now–especially the Old Testament. But it seems in our church the position is that the scriptures are literally true–real events, real people, events that actually happened as recounted. One question I have is why do records exist for the bible but not for the Book of Mormon–other than Joseph Smith’s work?
Whether literal or not I think the scriptures can teach us things. But I think it is harder for one to persist within an organized religion with literal claims. For those who have a literal belief the road is easier. The fact is, we cannot disprove or prove that God is real, that there is an afterlife.
How do you treat experts that contradict your belief systems? Do you minimize them, or write them off as a so called intellectual?
Other things in our society lend themselves to fact-finding. That football was either inbound or out-of bounds, though people in the bleachers might have opposite views from where they are sitting. We need to be intellectually curious people and question what we are told by those we listen to on the radio or TV. What was their source of info? And what was their source’s source? Do we make an effort to examine/listen to both sides of the story from different sources? I try to listen/read credible sources from both sides. Not those who are talking heads just preaching to the choir but those who bother to examine the question and look at facts/sources.
Lois, much of the science in the area of religion is more speculation than substance.
Take Campbell and heroquesting. I was working on a project and finally got badgered into reading Campbell.
Problem. I already knew the complete Tammuz cycle (which he didn’t have) that he uses as his core example.
Err. His lover is not descending into the underworld to save him.
Now I thought that was obvious. The Epic of Gilgamesh seemed clear enough to me.
Most of the time you don’t find the ruins of Jericho or the entire sacred marriage text, so the errors aren’t as clear.
But much of what goes on on religious spaces has not been science.
That said.
That said.
We are getting substantial and real work.
The world has come a long way from the 50s and 70s.
There is a lot to be said for rigorous academic study and tools.
Otherwise we drown ourselves in pablum.
I am listening to an audio book of “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” I nerd-out science book. It is full of scientists making mistakes, ignoring facts, holding on to traditions, trying to breakdown traditions / accepted understandings – sometimes incorrectly and sometimes correctly. It is interesting just how hard it is to get scientific consensus in the short term. You have to have some real verifiable, repeatable, obvious facts to do that (and sometimes even that does not work). It is amazing how many times someone figures something out, only to find others way before their time already postulated the idea.
I think that is generally good that change is a bit hard to make. Somewhat like what I wrote about with Jonathan Haidt in a post a few months back where you need a balance of progressivism and conservatism. To progressive and you jump all over the place too quick and conversely if you are too conservative you hang on to the past too tightly and don’t progress.
But what I do see is a process that over time is fairly good at self correcting. It is good and progressing despite the failings of the individuals.
I was going to say a bunch of things, but then Ari said them all. Great comment. I can only add that I second the notion folks just seem desperate to cling to some sort of belief that gives them comfort. That’s certainly understandable and quite common. However, I think Ari’s right that we hold on tighter and tighter to that thing that we cling to, making it “true” in our world, even though it may not be objectively true. I’ve got a lot of empathy for those folks. This is a hard world and it’s really a comfort to find something that we believe gives our existence meaning. Maybe folks believing in things that aren’t true isn’t that big a deal, really, on a small scale. But when that belief is universalized, or rather, when people try to universalize their “truth”, it’s my experience that doing so does a lot more harm than good, especially for those folks who are of the same religious community and are trying to find their own way, but instead walk by faith, not by the “100 percent true, no falseness” mode that the Eyring post mentioned a few days ago.
And that’s what leads to resistance to the kinds of change that could be helpful (more stringent environmental laws, people having a healthier approach to sex/intimacy, people not seeing the poor and homeless as deserving their plight) because no matter what the experts say, if you’ve made a god of your absolute certainty (which really doesn’t exist, esp. in the realm of faith), you’re simply going to resist/cast aspersions on anything that challenges your “truth”. Sad, but that’s the way it is.
As a society, we really need to think more about the nature of expertise. Experts are people whose are more knowledgeable and experienced in a given area, and by virtue of their knowledge and expertise, deserve consultation and deference in important matters.
They are not, however, infallible or worthy of blind trust. Nutritionists regularly disagree with each other and come up with findings that conflict with prior understanding, only to be reversed again at a later date. With that knowledge, why should it surprise us that members of the Church set aside the expertise when it conflicts with the word of wisdom? After all, this week’s study demonstrating the benefits of alcohol in moderation will only last until next week’s study concluding that alcohol is dangerous at any amount. Archeologists who assumed that la Ciudad Blanca was a myth now have to confront evidence that it might have been rooted in truth.
To blindly trust “so-called experts” is no different than blind trust of anyone else. I don’t think knowledgeable experts in most areas would say that you should automatically trust them, because most experts challenge long-held assumptions of the experts that went before them along the way. To not challenge them is perhaps just as dangerous as rejecting them outright.
By the way, what’s the statute of limitations for ridiculing an Apostle’s word choice? Going after a quarter-century old talk by a deceased apostle to a specific audience seems lazy to me.
DSC – on your last comment about using a 25 year old talk being beyond a statute of limitations. if 25 years is a cutoff, doesn’t that then exclude older texts such as the D&C, BOM, Bible?
I’m loving all these “So Called comments” you all have posted, and take the criticism aimed at my post as constructive, to make them better in the future!
When intellectuals tell me that there is no such thing as a spirit, as a resurrection, as an atonement, I just tell them I have had too many spiritual experiences to deny these things so I dismiss them.
When intellectuals tell me the earth is older than 6 thousand years old, that the human race did not originate in Missouri and that people have been in the America’s for over 15,000 years, I agree with them and don’t let stupid things like that destroy my faith in God or throw away my religious tradition.
When intellectuals tell me that Round Up causes Hodgkins Lymphoma, that farting cows causes global warming, and that insecticides I use on a daily basis are wiping out bee colonies, I vehemently disagree with these people because it affects me financially.
Turns out that those bees …
I lost all faith in the reliability of spiritual experiences as a means of discerning truth when I realized I had contradictory transcendances that were experientially identical. I once had a deeply spiritual experience when I was pondering the possibility of the non-existence of God. It was hard to wrap my mind around God telling me He doesn’t exist! I’ve had identical experiences when reading from the Book of Mormon and then again when I was studying about the ahistoricity of that book. Once I started to study the psychology of spirituality, I eventually had to develop a new epistemology. I still value transcendance and seek it out as a beautiful human experience – I just don’t accept those experiences as communications from divinity.
But the downside to this new epistemic approach is there is nothing I am not willing to critically investigate, regardless of any experiences I have had. Yes, I have been deeply moved by the atonement of Christ, but that doesn’t mean I won’t investigate the historicity of the resurrection and possibly lose my faith in that as a literal event. (Which has happened). On the one hand, I feel free to form my own conclusions about everything. On the other hand, I’m not nearly as confident in anything anymore.
“Guitar bands are on their way out, Mr.. Epstein” (Decca Records CEO rejecting an audition by The Beatles)
Would this man have been regarded as an expert before this statement? How many experts encountered Milli Vanilli and advanced their “musical” career?
There’s not enough evidence to prove the authenticity, of the Book of Mormon, and not enough to disprove it; perhaps the best position for it to be in.
Great post, Bishop Bill. A related thing is how the Church uses experts and relies on their expertise: rather selectively. For building construction or insurance coverage or minimizing legal liability, the Church is very happy to consult experts and take their advice. For the history of the Native Americans, biblical criticism, child protection, and the health effects of coffee or green tea versus candy or soda pop, not so much.
True experts are almost always quite circumspect about how much certainty they express. New or previously unavailable data can always modify an expert’s opinion. In science, even positions that have a broad consensus in the discipline can be overturned. There are always questions or issues on which expert opinion is fairly evenly divided. I think it is journalists and commentators who take this or that piece of expert opinion and broadcast it with too much certainty attached that give experts a bad name.
When it comes to belief verses knowledge, whether among the religious or the secular, belief will almost always trump knowledge. Belief is far more powerful than knowledge. Belief is active, knowledge is passive. Belief defines who we are, our relationship to others, and how we guide ourselves throughout our lives. Knowledge doesn’t. Belief drives us to search, explore, take risks, fight, and sacrifice. Knowledge doesn’t. Belief is why we do whatever it is that we do. Knowledge helps us to accomplish what we do, but belief is the reason we do it.
Happy Hubby,
I suspect you are willfully missing the point of my comment. The scriptures are, well, scripture. They have been canonized and accepted as such. I’m sure Elder Packer’s comments would be relevant to a contemplation of his life, words, and works, but it just seems petty to take a dig at such an old comment, out of context, by a man who no longer has a part of leading the Church.
I think when people encounter experts that contradict their belief systems, they find other experts to bolster their belief systems. That’s why we have relative truth right now. It also depends what kind of “expertise” a person has, whether it’s academic training, field experience, or armchair study. A person’s opinion may also be judged on that individual’s personal background, including political ideology. Mormons are more likely to trust Mormon experts. Those who dislike the Church are much less likely to trust a Mormon calling themselves an expert in anything.
We use the “so-called” prefix when we doubt that the individual really knows what they are talking about or suspect significant bias. It’s equivalent to an eye-roll.
“How do you treat experts that contradict your belief systems?”
They are welcome to their different beliefs. If they feel like talking about it I will often participate.
“Expert” is a human label, a judgement made by other humans. Its useful at times. It is not proof. Things like licenses and certifications help identify a person that probably has the skills you seek; airplane pilots for instance must pass a test and thus have a reasonably sure set of basic skills. If it were not so, anyone could claim to be a pilot putting passengers at grave risk.
That’s pretty much why I think the Mormons have structure and priesthood. Maybe you are a priest and maybe you aren’t. Got anyone to vouch for you? Joseph Smith started with six if I remember right. Six people that vouched that Joseph Smith was an expert on God.
DoubtingTom writes “I once had a deeply spiritual experience when I was pondering the possibility of the non-existence of God. It was hard to wrap my mind around God telling me He doesn’t exist!”
This is somewhat similar to Korihor’s experience having an angel tell him that God does not exist. If angels exist, how can God not exist? He’s simply the chief angel.
Spiritual feelings are real, powerful but not very discerning. It is simply the “dial tone” on your telephone to the Other Side, The Light of Christ. Any time you turn your mind to spiritual things you tap into this light of Christ; it’s there for everyone. It is not God and it is not the Holy Ghost. When I give a blessing I first seek this light; for until I find it, the phone is on the hook. Hmm, I wonder what that metaphor means to millenials that have never seen a phone on the hook?
When an expert says something that challenges my point of view I would like to think that I listen to them carefully to learn from their knowledge so I can draw an informed conclusion.
Realistically, almost everyone over estimates their ability to think critically, which probably includes me.
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I find it interesting that Dsc attributes the phrase to a particular talk from 25 years ago because I did not notice the OP attribute the phrase and I thought the phrase was fairly ubiquitous within the body of gen-con addresses. A Google search revealed at least one more recent reference to the phrase:
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2002/10/the-marvelous-foundation-of-our-faith?lang=eng
Truth be told, I expected a lot more results and more recent results, but my effort was minimal.
A statute of limitations is an interesting metaphor for treatment of apostle talks. I can see and understand an argument that it would be better to focus on the more permanent and truly canonical works. However…
I’m pretty sure BKP intended his words to be permanent. More to the point, the members at the time, many who are still alive today, were taught and continue to be taught that both current and former apostles speak with authority.
And most importantly is the fact that the church still behaves the way it did when the talk was given. Intellectuals are still referred to as “so-called” (I think – further evidence needed), feminists are still excommunicated when they are too vocal, gays are still…. not treated great. Sure there have been some changes, but I see no reason to give BKP a pass when his words still seem to represent common thinking within the church.
Michael2,
I deeply respect the belief that spiritual feelings dial tones tapping into the Light of Christ. This is how I used to feel about it. But there are also naturalistic explanations that do not invoke the supernatural and instead rely on human psychology and neuroscience. I simply find these explanations to better fit both the universality of these transcendant events throughout humanity as well as my own personal experiences. This is just where I am right now, but I don’t insist I’m right. Just that these explanations make way more sense to my mind and heart.