The Death of Expertise: How the Confidently Correct Rule the World

Recording from a bunker lined with unread academic journals and diplomas doubling as emergency toilet paper, it’s your host, Donovan! In this episode of Deep Dives in the Shallow End, we unravel the twisted wreckage of modern anti-intellectualism—where ignorance is celebrated, Wikipedia warriors reign supreme, and Socrates would probably down a hemlock cocktail just to escape Twitter.

From the infamous Dunning-Kruger effect to the rise of “do your own research” epidemiologists, we explore why expertise is under siege and how misinformation spreads six times faster than the truth. Why cite peer-reviewed studies when a guy named “TruthWarrior69” on YouTube already figured out quantum physics while microdosing in his garage?

Join us as we dissect the absurdity, hilarity, and sheer existential despair of a world where your aunt’s Facebook prayer group is more trusted than actual scientists.

🔹 The psychology behind overconfidence and why dumb people think they’re geniuses

🔹 The internet’s role in flattening expertise into “just another opinion”

🔹 The irony of rejecting experts while relying on technology they created

🔹 How anti-intellectualism became a proud American tradition

Grab your tinfoil hats, your Big Pharma conspiracy scrolls, and your misplaced confidence—this one’s gonna be a ride.

🎙️ Listen now before an algorithm decides what you should think for you.

#DeathOfExpertise #DunningKrugerEffect #SatirePodcast #AntiIntellectualism #ConspiracyTheories #SocratesWouldWeep #WisdomVsFacebook #DoYourOwnResearch #MisinformationMadness #TrustTheExperts #ScienceVsStupidity

Transcript

Recording from a bunker lined with unread academic journals and diplomas being used as emergency toilet paper – looks like his PhD in Medieval Literature is finally worth something — it's your host, Donovan!

Welcome back to Deep Dives in the Shallow End, the show where we unravel the tangled mess of modern existence and somehow end up with even more knots than my intestines after a Taco Bell $5 Box challenge. Today's episode is sponsored by Dunning-Kruger Industries: "Because confidence doesn't require competence — just ask any male politician discussing women's health!"

I'm your not-so-expert host, Donovan, and today we're dissecting a phenomenon as maddening as trying to explain quantum physics to a goldfish because the goldfish insists it already knows everything because it watched a TikTok about string theory: This is all about the Death of Expertise.

Let me paint you a picture backed by actual research — you know, that thing people used to do before they just started "feeling" facts into existence. In 1999, David Dunning and Justin Kruger published their landmark study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology – I know, it’s hard to trust a scientist named Justin, but put that aside. These scientists found that people who performed in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic scored in the 62nd percentile in their perceived ability. That's right – the worse they were, the better they thought they were. It's like nature's cruel version of a participation trophy, except instead of getting a plastic medal, you get the unshakeable confidence of a mediocre white man explaining physics to a female NASA scientist. Or at least that’s what I probably would do if I could improve myself to mediocrity and attract the attention of a woman…any woman.

The study has been replicated countless times across different fields and cultures. It's one of psychology's most robust findings, right up there with "people will pretty much do any weird thing when asked by someone in a lab coat" and "students will work twice as hard to avoid work than just doing the work.”

People today are like the intellectual equivalent of those fainting goats – the moment they get scared, they just lock up and fall over. Except instead of fear, it's knowledge that makes people freeze. Show someone actual data that contradicts their beliefs, and watch them topple right over into cognitive dissonance faster than my mom into the community pool after her fifth Harvey Wallbanger at the neighborhood BBQ. And let me tell you, nothing says "I'm right about vaccines" quite like someone whose primary source of medical information is their aunt's prayer group.

Think about it: Socrates, one of history's greatest philosophers, famously said, "I know that I know nothing." Meanwhile, Karen from Facebook knows exactly how to solve the Middle East crisis, climate change, and why your chakras need realignment – all before her morning kale smoothie, which she'll tell you cures everything from cancer to capitalism. If Socrates were alive today, he'd probably take one look at Twitter and order a tall hemlock cocktail, stirred, as he's already sufficiently shaken by humanity's descent into intellectual bankruptcy.

And remember when teachers said, "Don't cite Wikipedia as a source"? Those same teachers are now watching in horror as their students cite TikTok dance videos as primary sources for their dissertations. "According to @BussinBabyGirl's interpretive dance about the Civil War, Sherman's March was actually just a vibe check." We've evolved from "Wikipedia may not be a reliable source" to "Well, at least it's not a Reddit thread.”

That said, a 2005 study in Nature found that Wikipedia's accuracy rivaled Encyclopedia Britannica's in scientific entries. But that's like saying your drunk uncle is as reliable as your slightly tipsy aunt at Thanksgiving dinner – the bar isn't exactly stratospheric here, and both of them maintain the Earth is 6,000 years old and dinosaur bones were planted by Satan to test our faith.

The modern Wikipedia warrior is a special breed. They've mastered the art of skimming the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article and emerging with the confidence of a person who's memorized the Library of Alexandria, despite having the reading comprehension of a concussed hamster. They're like Icarus, flying too close to the sun of knowledge, except instead of wax wings, they're powered by misquoted statistics and half-remembered claims from a Joe Rogan podcast where he interviewed a guy who read a book about quantum physics while microdosing on mushrooms grown in Alex Jones' basement.

And let's not forget the edit wars. Somewhere right now, there's a heated battle between a distinguished professor with three PhDs and a teenager named DankLord420 over whether the moon landing was fake. The professor presents peer-reviewed research and primary sources; DankLord420 responds with "lol ur mom gay" and somehow gets more supporters. It's like watching civilization, and the rules of  , collapse in real-time.

Wikipedia actually tracks these edit wars. Some of the longest-running disputes include whether Chopin was French or Polish (he was both, much like how I'm both depressed AND anxious), whether Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk's middle name is "Tiberius" (it is, but try telling that to the die-hards, some of whom insist it's "ThunderCock"), and whether birds are technically dinosaurs. That last one got so heated that paleontologists had to be called in to mediate. Imagine getting your PhD in paleontology only to end up as a referee in a digital slap fight between. Although I suppose it's better than what most PhDs have to do – become baristas while picking up the odd class or two at the local junior college, explaining Proust to students who think "Remembrance of Things Past" is a Taylor Swift album.

The real tragedy isn't just that people think they're experts after reading Wikipedia – it's that they stop reading right when it gets interesting. They're like tourists who visit Paris and only take selfies with the Eiffel Tower from the parking lot. "Yep, I've experienced French culture. Now, where's the nearest McDonald's?" And, by the way, if you find yourself in that situation, you have a lot of options. If you want to head into the 15th arrondissement, the closest is on Boulevard de Grenelle, but if you want to head into the 16th, there's one on Rue de Passy. But, if you really want to synergize your cultural ignorance with peak American efficiency, head to the Arc de Triomphe where you'll find two McDonalds within a stone's throw of each other, just waiting to spread freedom, heart disease, and the illusion of cultural understanding.

But let's head back to the good ol' USofA, land of the free and home of the "I know better than you because I watched a 30-second Instagram Reel." Richard Hofstadter, in his 1963 book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, traced our proud tradition of telling smart people to shut up. It's basically our national pastime, right after baseball and pretending we understand the electoral college.

Hofstadter actually won the Pulitzer Prize for this book, which is ironic considering it's about Americans' distrust of intellectual achievement. It's like how I hope to one day win a gold medal in explaining why the Olympics are a waste of time at best, and an economic and human-rights disaster at worst – like if Fyre Festival had a baby with a military coup, but with sexy spandex outfits.

But Hofstadter identified three main strains of American anti-intellectualism: evangelical religious ideals, populist political movements, and the cult of practicality in business. It's like a three-layer cake of ignorance, thinly frosted with "common sense" and decorated with "Well, that's just your opinion" – served at every family gathering where your uncle explains how climate change isn't real because it snowed last winter in Texas.

Part of this comes from the fact that Americans have always loved the self-made man, the practical genius, the guy who learned everything he knows from the school of hard knocks – which, by the way, is only accredited online, not regionally, but you can still spend your whole GI Bill there while getting bombarded with more spam than a Hawaiian restaurant's dumpster.

Think about it: we celebrate Benjamin Franklin, but modern Benjamin Franklins would be dismissed as "elite coastal intellectuals" for daring to read books and do science. Poor Ben would probably be canceled for flying a kite in a thunderstorm – "Fake news! Lightning isn't real! It's just God snapping a few selfies!"

Franklin, by the way, was the original American polymath – writer, diplomat, inventor, alleged syphilitic – all the good ones, all the hits. He was also a bit of a weirdo – but my kind of weirdo. This man actually wrote an essay suggesting that farts should be made to smell pleasant for the benefit of mankind. He called this essay "Fart Proudly." I'm not making this up. This is the same guy who helped pen the Declaration of Independence.

And let's talk about Thomas Jefferson, who wrote to John Adams: "I cannot live without books." Today, he'd be that guy with a Kindle full of unread self-help books and James Patterson novels, pretending he's going to get to them right after he finishes binge-watching "The Real Housewives of Colonial Virginia" and doom-scrolling through British tea tax memes.

The irony is that our founding fathers were the intellectual elite of their time. They read Latin and Greek, studied philosophy, and engaged in lengthy written debates about governance – total sausage fest material. We've gone from "Give me liberty or give me death" to "Give me likes or give me notifications" faster than you can say "constitutional crisis."

Speaking of notifications, did you know that the average American checks their phone 344 times per day? That's roughly once every 4 minutes during waking hours. We're literally interrupting our ignorance to check if anyone has validated our ignorance. It's like a perpetual motion machine of stupid, powered by dopamine and spotty Wi-Fi – the only renewable energy source America seems willing to invest in.

Remember when the internet was supposed to usher in a new age of enlightenment? Yeah, that aged about as well as milk in a sauna. Instead of creating a global brain trust, we've created a global brain shart – what started with good intentions has turned into something dark, smelly, and has left an indelible stain on society, and your boxers.

Back in 1995, Nicholas Negroponte wrote "Being Digital," predicting a future where information would flow freely and create a more informed society. He probably didn't anticipate that the most shared content in 2024 would be videos of people trying to eat corn on the cob mounted on a power drill. We didn't just miss the mark – we shot the arrow backward and struck ourselves – luckily, but embarrassingly, it ended up being one of those plastic arrows with a suction cup on the end and now it's just dangling on our foreheads making us look like fools, but hey, at least it's gone viral as the latest "hashtag being an asshole challenge."

Let’s talk a bit about misinformation. Once upon a time, if you wanted to spread misinformation, you had to work for it – printing pamphlets, standing on street corners, trying to convince the few hundred people that would pass by you that the government was replacing pigeons with surveillance drones. Now, you can type 160 characters of bile and idiocy, hit send, and watch society crumble in real-time, all while getting more engagement than actual scientists trying to warn us about climate change. It's like if the apocalypse had a LinkedIn profile, and we're all smashing that "like" button.

In 1844, a New York newspaper convinced people that astronomers had discovered bat-people living on the moon. The "Great Moon Hoax" ran for six days before being debunked. Today, we call that "Tuesday" on social media. At least the bat-people story had creative flair – modern conspiracy theories are just Mad Libs filled out by a University of Phoenix dropout having an aneurysm while watching Ancient Aliens reruns. "The (plural noun) are controlling our (body part) through (technology that doesn't exist) because (completely misunderstood scientific concept)!"

The internet is like the Library of Alexandria meets Lord of the Flies – we have all of human knowledge at our fingertips, but we're mostly using it to argue about whether the Earth is flat and share cat videos. And between those two, the cats would probably take the W in any debate. At least they know the Earth is round – otherwise, they'd have pushed everything off the edge by now, just for spite.

Did you know that according to recent studies, about 12% of Americans between 18 and 34 believe the Earth might be flat? That's right – we've got smartphones that can access the sum of human knowledge, and we're using them to un-learn things we figured out in the 3rd century BCE. Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's circumference using a stick and his brain – the best I can do with those tools is scratch my back and panic myself to sleep thinking about my student loan debt. Today, we've got people with quantum computers in their pockets arguing that if the Earth was round, wouldn't Australians fall off? Meanwhile, Australians are too busy fighting their daily death match with local wildlife to care about gravity's opinion on their existence.

The real kicker? The ancient Greeks not only knew the Earth was round, they also had a better grasp of basic logic than most social media users. Aristotle's list of logical fallacies reads like a checklist of every internet argument ever. Ad hominem? Check. False equivalence? Check. Arguing that because your cousin's roommate's once saw a horizon that looked flat, the entire field of astronomy must be wrong? Aristotle didn't include that one, but I'm sure he's rolling in his grave fast enough to power a small city.

And let's talk about how we process information now. Studies show that the average person spends 2.5 seconds looking at a headline before sharing it. That's not even enough time to read the whole thing, let alone fact-check it – it's like speed dating, but instead of potential soul mates, you're swiping right on potential brain damage. We're treating information like we're at an all-you-can-eat buffet five minutes before closing – just grabbing whatever's within reach and hoping the food poisoning won't be fatal this time.

But now we hear the battle cry of the modern intellectual warrior: "Do your own research!" It's become the equivalent of "Let them eat cake" for the digital age – a dismissive suggestion that somehow manages to be both condescending and completely missing the point.  These brave keyboard warriors spend hours "researching" – which means reading headlines that confirm their existing beliefs while sitting on the toilet. It's like Confirmation Bias: The Home Game™, now with extra cognitive dissonance and a complimentary tinfoil hat.

Speaking of confirmation bias, let me throw some actual psychology at you – you know, the kind that comes from peer-reviewed journals, not your crystal healing Facebook group. Studies show that when people encounter information that contradicts their beliefs, the parts of their brain associated with personal identity and emotional response light up – not the areas involved in logical reasoning. It's actually painful for people to change their minds. Which perfectly explains why they'll dismiss peer-reviewed studies because "Big Science can't be trusted" but will absolutely believe a random blog post written by someone named "TruthWarrior69" who claims drinking turpentine cures everything from cancer to male pattern baldness.

Let's break down what actual research entails, shall we? Years of specialized education, rigorous methodology, peer review, replication studies, and statistical analysis. What people think it means: watching a 15-minute YouTube video made by someone whose credentials include "School of Life" where they minored in "you can’t prove it didn’t happen." It's like comparing Gordon Ramsay to me because I once successfully microwaved a Hot Pocket.

A 2023 study found that 65% of people who say "do your own research" couldn't actually explain what a control group is. That's like telling someone to perform their own heart surgery but not knowing which end of the scalpel to hold.

The irony? These same people wouldn't "do their own research" on their car's transmission. They wouldn't "do their own research" on performing their own root canals or DIY appendectomies. But vaccines? Climate change? International monetary policy? Oh yeah, they've got that figured out after watching three YouTube videos and reading a very thoughtfully crafted meme featuring Sam Elliott looking disappointed – because nothing says "credible source" quite like a cowboy actor who probably doesn't know he's become the mascot for conspiracy theories and tactical sunglasses.

So here we are, folks, teetering on the edge of intellectual oblivion like a drunk frat boy on a balcony during spring break. The good news is, actual experts are still out there, doing their jobs, keeping the lights on and the internet running. The bad news? They're probably updating their resumes to become influencers because that's where the real money is. Can't blame them – why spend 12 years getting a PhD when you could make more money doing interpretive dances about quantum physics while promoting sugar bear hair gummies?

In fact, did you know that the average research scientist makes about $80,000 a year, while a moderately successful TikTok influencer can make that in a month? We're literally incentivizing people to abandon the lab coat for ring lights. Soon, we're going to see CERN converted from a hub for groundbreaking physics to the hottest new influencer house. The Large Hadron Collider will be rebranded as the 'Big Bang Challenge,' sponsored by Bang Energy Drinks and Squarespace.

So let's pour one out for all the scientists who spent decades studying viruses, only to be outsmarted by someone who once read the back of a Lysol bottle and thinks essential oils are the antidote for everything other than their chronic inability to mind their own business. It's like watching a chess grandmaster lose to a pigeon – the pigeon knocks over all the pieces, shits on the board, and struts around like the cock of the walk.

Look, I'm not saying we should all become experts just to have an opinion. That's impossible – and trust me, as someone who can barely operate a can opener without turning it into an emergency room visit, I get it. But maybe, just maybe, we could try something revolutionary: admitting when we don't know something. I know, I know – it sounds crazy, like suggesting we read past headlines or fact-check before sharing, but hear me out on this radical proposition:

Let's start a revolution of reasonable doubt.

Imagine a world where people say, "You know what? I don't know enough about immunology to challenge the entire medical establishment." Imagine social media posts that begin with "This isn't my field, but..." And while we're at it, let's imagine a world where I have an A1C that's under 10 – a guy can hope.

But that hope will only get us so far. According to that MIT study I mentioned, false news spreads six times faster than true news on social media. We're like a species-wide game of telephone, except instead of "purple monkey dishwasher," we're ending up with "vaccines contain 5G microchips controlled by Bill Gates." And you know what? Maybe it's time we hung up that phone.

So here's your homework, fellow travelers in this cosmic joke: Next time you're about to share that article about how birds don’t exist or Jewish space lasers are causing wildfires, take a breath. Ask yourself: "Do I actually know what I'm talking about, or am I just confidently wrong? At least take the time to read past the headlines and try to muster up all the critical thinking skills that you can to see if this even makes objective sense.

Because here's the thing: expertise isn't dead – it's just being drowned out by the noise of a million keyboards typing "well, actually" in unison. We can change that. We must change that. We do not want our best source of medical information to come from lawyers-turned-politicians who have somehow turned medicine and basic healthcare into political fodder buttressed by religious fervor. There’s a perfectly acceptable place for that – your place of worship and home – not in legislation and hospitals.  

Well, that's all for this week's episode of Deep Dives in the Shallow End. Remember to like, share, and subscribe – because people who do so have been found to lower their cholesterol by 20%. 

And if you're wondering about the credibility of this episode, just know that I did all my own research, and it has been peer-reviewed by my wife skimming it right after getting up from a nap. She offered no corrections, which in academic terms is what we call "tacit approval," and in marriage terms is what we call "weapon’s grade indifference."

If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to leave a comment explaining why I'm wrong about everything – but you better bring your sources.

Until next time, take care of yourselves, and others, and as personally repellant as I find it, be sure to crack open a book once in a while. So stay curious, stay humble, and if all else fails, just blame it on a political or demographic cabal, Mercury being in retrograde, or if all else fails, the Illuminati.

This is Donovan, signing off from my bunker of unread academic journals, reminding you that sometimes the smartest thing you can say is "I don't know" – unless you're on a first date or in a job interview, in which case lie your ass off like the rest of us. Hope to see you next time.