In recent political debates there has been a significant change in the
valence of the word “experts” from a superlative to a near
pejorative, typically accompanied by a recitation of experts’ many
failures and misdeeds. In topics as varied as Brexit, climate change,
and vaccinations there is a palpable mistrust of experts and a
tendency to dismiss their advice. Are we witnessing, therefore, the
“death of expertise,” or is the handwringing about an “assault
on science” merely the hysterical reaction of threatened elites?
In this new book, Gil Eyal argues that what needs to be explained is
not a one-sided “mistrust of experts” but the
two-headed _pushmi-pullyu_ of unprecedented reliance on science and
expertise, on the one hand, coupled with increased skepticism and
dismissal of scientific findings and expert opinion, on the other. The
current mistrust of experts is best understood as one more spiral in
an on-going, recursive crisis of legitimacy. The “scientization of
politics,” of which critics warned in the 1960s, has brought about a
politicization of science, and the two processes reinforce one another
in an unstable, crisis-prone mixture.
This timely book will be of great interest to students and scholars in
the social sciences and to anyone concerned about the political uses
of, and attacks on, scientific knowledge and expertise.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781509538874
Publisert
2019
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Polity
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter