Analysis Of Tom Nichols's 'The Death Of Expertise'

Tom Nichols is a professor at U.S Naval War college who is known for writing many books dealing with modern issues relating to different types of conflicts. One of his best books is The Death of Expertise. This essay will discuss the main points of The Death of Expertise, what Nichols is trying to argue in his book, and a final evaluation. The argument that this book explores is the relationship between experts and citizens, how this relationship is collapsing, and what can be done to solve this problem. Nichols explains how American citizens try to find loopholes in an expert’s advice so that they can disregard them. He also discusses about other phenomena, such as the Dunning-Krueger effect and confirmation bias. Nichols also argues that
He states that “ask any professional or expert about the death of expertise, and most of them will immediately blame the same culprit: the internet” (105). He identifies internet as a culprit as people used to solely take advice from the experts, but now they just use Google to solve their problems, as he states: “People who once had to ask the advice of specialists in any given field now plug search terms into a browser and get answers in seconds” (105-06). Easy access of information available on the internet has given a lot of confidence to laypeople as they then argue with experts, and they do not even consider the fact that if this information is true or not, they just trust this information blindly because they got it from the internet. Nichols discusses that internet is making people lazy and affecting their research ability because laypeople prefer to look for the facts on the internet rather than looking for facts in the books, which proves to be poor as research means to investigate something by themselves and on the other hand Nichols admits that internet is very beneficial as he states that: “I gladly admit that internet access makes my work as a writer a lot easier” (109). Nichols states the phenomena known as confirmation bias which means that if people gets corrected on something, then they will Google the stuff which they already believe to prove
University degrees are commonly expected these days which is replacing high school diplomas. Everyone in this generation thinks that going to university is a must, which raises their standards. Nichols discusses that American universities are killing the abilities of the students as he states: “The most important of these intellectual capabilities, and the one most under attack in American universities is critical thinking” (72). Relationship between students and professors is very informal these days and that is why students hesitate to ask any question to their professors, but they communicate with them through email, no matter how simple the question is. Nichols mentions that in early times, high school diplomas was the requirement for the jobs but nowadays it is replaced by a master’s degree and because of this, students are going through a financial crisis. He states that “Students are going broke running around in this educational hamster wheel, without learning much” (75). Nichols argues that American universities should be seen as the place form where students can get higher education, but students are seeing universities as a place where they can spend their four years with their friends and enjoy their life as Nichols expresses that “They