Keith Hudson wrote:
> The point is that "best argument" needs well-informed, well-educated
> individuals. There are many general issues where the ordinary individual is
> well-informed, but there is an increasing number of very complex issues
> today. Neither the ordinary person, nor the average politician, nor even
> (now) senior civil servants are well-informed on these. There needs to be
> highly-specialised debate on these. There is no need for these to be held
> in private, however. (That would certainly make it technocratic.)
> Intuitively, ordinary people are well able to judge the sincerity and
> expertise of specialists -- so long as their debate is fully accessible. By
> "accessible", I mean not only the debate, but also the membership of the
> debates.
A main problem is the virtually inherent lack of independency of specialists.
Specialists' dependency begins with their training and becomes manifest in
their affiliation, usually in industry, and these days even those in academia
are in some way dependent on industry, and increasingly so.
> Intuitively, ordinary people are well able to judge the sincerity and
> expertise of specialists -- so long as their debate is fully accessible.
Their debate is never nearly "fully accessible" -- neither by medium
(scientific journals) nor by participation (forums) -- and even if it
was, how should "ordinary people" be "well able to judge the sincerity
and expertise of specialists" ? Can you name a single issue where this
would be the case ?
The only hope to take this role would be the press, but this is a hopele$$
case, it seems. The press is even more sold out than politicians...
Chris
