I side entirely with Noah Carl here. I can’t think of a substantial disagreement with his points.<\/p>\n
Noah Carl writes<\/a>: <\/p>\n The <\/span>debate<\/a> between Dave Smith and Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast has reignited a conversation on the right about the value of experts and expertise. <\/span><\/p>\n For those who didn\u2019t catch the debate, here\u2019s a brief summary. Its purpose was to ventilate the arguments for and against the West\u2019s policy in Ukraine and Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, with Murray representing those \u201cfor\u201d and Smith those \u201cagainst\u201d. Right off the bat, Murray asked Rogan, \u201cDo you think you\u2019ve had enough people on who are supportive of either war?\u201d (the implication being that he hadn\u2019t). This prompted a lengthy discussion about whether Rogan had platformed too many people with non-mainstream or fringe views, and whether it\u2019s even appropriate for non-experts (including Smith) to pontificate on subjects like geopolitics on one of the world\u2019s most popular podcasts. <\/p>\n As I understood him, Murray was not arguing that non-experts shouldn\u2019t be <\/span>allowed<\/em> to share their views, but rather that gatekeepers like Rogan have a responsibility to refrain from platforming them\u2014or to only platform them alongside experts who have the knowledge to debunk their views.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSo what\u2019s the solution\u2014to not talk about it?\u201d <\/span>Rogan asks<\/a>. To which Murray replies in an exasperated tone, \u201cNo, it\u2019s to have more experts around.\u201d He\u2019s then challenged by Smith, who asks in relation to lockdowns and other Covid measures that he opposed, \u201cShould I have just shut up?\u201d Murray says, \u201cNo, no, no,\u201d and explains that what he really means is, \u201cLet’s have a bit of hygiene on our own side, not lift every sewer gate\u201d. Murray also argues that it\u2019s \u201cweird\u201d for people like Smith to talk \u201cnonstop\u201d about subjects in which they are not experts.<\/span><\/p>\n After the episode was published online, Murray received a lot of criticism: almost every single comment on the <\/span>YouTube video<\/a> makes fun of him in some way, and the top one has 37K likes. Yet a number of thoughtful commentators came to his defence. <\/span>Konstantin Kisin<\/a>, <\/span>Nathan Cofnas<\/a> and <\/span>Yuki Zeman<\/a> each penned an article defending Murray\u2019s position on experts and expertise\u2014i.e., that \u201ccertain people shouldn\u2019t comment on certain things and that others should not elevate their voices\u201d (to quote Kisin). <\/span><\/p>\n Like Kisin, Cofnas and Zeman, I obviously prefer to see people with a good understanding of the world have their voices elevated in the public discussion. (I have no interest in hearing from liars and ignoramuses.) However, I think that establishing who actually has a good understanding\u2014i.e., who should have their voice elevated\u2014is less straightforward than Murray and his defenders believe. And I think that by their own logic, Murray\u2019s voice is one that shouldn\u2019t be elevated. <\/p>\n All three pro-Murray articles take for granted that <\/span>he<\/em> is qualified to opine on the subjects he talks about. Beginning from this assumption, they then consider whether the targets of his criticism are similarly qualified, and conclude that some or most them aren\u2019t. For example, Cofnas characterises Murray as someone who \u201cwent to Oxford, writes books with footnotes, and hangs out with academics\u201d. This is in contrast to Smith, who \u201cgets basic facts wrong in ways that reveal deep ignorance and intellectual irresponsibility\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n Now, I\u2019m not disputing that Smith has made embarrassing errors. However, I don\u2019t think these errors disqualify him from talking about the West\u2019s policy in Ukraine or Israel\u2019s war in Gaza\u2014topics of which he seems to have a decent grasp based on his debate with Murray. Nor do they imply that Joe Rogan is irresponsible for having platformed him. After all, Murray <\/span>too<\/em> has made mistakes in his work, which I would contend are no less egregious than Smith\u2019s. And I wouldn\u2019t say <\/span>he<\/em> is unqualified to opine on these subjects.<\/span><\/p>\n Recently, the leftist journalist Nathan Robinson (who co-wrote a book with Noam Chomsky dealing with Israel\/Palestine) penned a <\/span>scathing review<\/a> of <\/span>Democracies and Death Cults<\/em>, cataloguing numerous \u201cerrors, omissions and misleading statements\u201d. Among the most egregious is that Murray used a fabricated quote and gave an anonymous Twitter account as the source. He also made <\/span>false or misleading statements<\/a> in a piece recounting his debate with Smith. For example, he <\/span>stated<\/a> that a previous guest on Rogan\u2019s podcast had \u201cvery carefully tried to minimize the evil of Adolf Hitler\u201d but that guest didn\u2019t even mention Hitler. <\/span><\/p>\n More egregious than either Smith\u2019s or Murray\u2019s factual errors are some of the <\/span>arguments<\/em> Murray put forward on Rogan\u2019s podcast. The first of these, which unsurprisingly <\/span>went viral<\/a> due to its patent absurdity, was Murray\u2019s insistence that \u201cif you’re going to spend a year and a half talking about a place, you should at least do the courtesy of visiting it\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n This is not a serious argument and I\u2019m actually astonished that Murray and others have continued defending it.<\/span>1<\/a><\/span> Despite claiming to have a \u201cjournalistic rule\u201d of \u201ctrying never to talk about a country, even in passing, unless I’ve at least been there\u201d, Murray <\/span>frequently<\/a><\/em> talks about countries he\u2019s never been to. And so he should\u2014because his supposed \u201cjournalistic rule\u201d is bunk. There\u2019s also the fact that Murray\u2019s visits to Israel\/Palestine are hardly impartial fact-finding missions where he makes a good-faith effort to get both sides of the story. It\u2019s not even clear what his point is: many public figures have visited Israel\/Palestine and come away with <\/span>radically<\/a> <\/span>different<\/a> views from Murray.<\/span>2<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The second of Murray\u2019s bizarre arguments was his claim that \u201cPaul Wolfowitz is a great figure for almost any deep conspiracy\u201d, made in response to Smith\u2019s point that General Wesley Clark had first heard about plans for US military intervention in countries like Iraq and Syria from Paul Wolfowitz.<\/span>3<\/a><\/span> Murray goes on to state that \u201cwhen you start talking about Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle\u201d it is \u201cawfully noxious smelling\u201d, before quoting Mark Steyn\u2019s quip that Wolfowitz\u2019s name \u201cstarts with a nasty animal and ends Jewishly\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n Again, this is simply not a serious argument. In fact, it sounds like something a woke leftist would blurt out. To begin with, Smith is Jewish himself\u2014and he brought up numerous non-Jewish figures during the discussion, including George Bush, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. What\u2019s more, both Wolfowitz and Perle are described on their Wikipedia pages as \u201carchitects of the Iraq War\u201d. To top it off, Smith barely even criticised the two men; he merely mentioned their names. <\/p>\n The third of Murray\u2019s bizarre arguments was his accusation that Smith made an \u201cappeal to authority\u201d when he quoted the former head of the CIA. This is simply not what \u201cappeal to authority\u201d means. An appeal to authority is where you argue, \u201cI am right because such-and-such an authority figure says so\u201d. Smith merely cited a <\/span>diplomatic cable<\/a> <\/span>as evidence<\/em> to support a point he was making.<\/span>4<\/a><\/span> If Murray were correct, it would be logically fallacious to ever cite diplomatic cables in arguments, ruling out entire scholarly disciplines.<\/span><\/p>\n The last of Murray\u2019s bizarre arguments was his reference to Smith, made in a <\/span>follow-up article<\/a> for the <\/span>New York Post<\/em>, as someone \u201cclaiming some Jewish ancestry\u201d (the implication being that he does not in fact have much Jewish ancestry.) This is just an ad hominem, Smith having <\/span>confirmed<\/a> that both his parents are Jewish and he is 84% Ashkenazi Jew. <\/span><\/p>\n To be clear, my point is not that Murray\u2019s understanding of the world is so bad that his voice should not be elevated. It\u2019s the opposite<\/span>:<\/em> despite the factual errors he\u2019s made and bizarre arguments he\u2019s employed, he is still qualified to opine on these subjects. And by the same standard, so is Smith. Of course, one could demand an even more exacting standard from podcast hosts, in which case both men might fall short. Though I personally think the quality of public discussion would suffer in that case.<\/span><\/p>\n Does this mean I support a total free-for-all where any lunatic can spout nonsense to millions of people? Not necessarily. I can imagine individuals whom I would regard it as inappropriate to invite on to a major podcast.<\/span>5<\/a><\/span> However, I would generally favour a low bar for who counts as a \u201cnon-lunatic\u201d. In other words, I would tolerate a wide gamut of speculation, conspiracy theorising and questioning of received wisdom.<\/span>6<\/a><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n The first reason I would do so is that in fields like geopolitics, scope for genuine expertise is rather limited. This is not to say there aren\u2019t people who could reasonably be called \u201cexperts\u201d. There are. But the differences between them and non-experts are far smaller than in subjects like mathematics and the natural sciences. <\/p>\n Physicists can predict things to the tenth decimal place. Social scientists and political commentators can barely predict things better than chance. In a famous study, Philip Tetlock and his colleagues had 284 experts<\/span>7<\/a><\/span> make precise, numerical forecasts<\/span>8<\/a><\/span> about economic and geopolitical events over the span of two decades, and then scored them for accuracy. Remarkably, the experts <\/span>performed<\/a> no better than dart-throwing chimps and performed <\/span>worse<\/em> than simple algorithms (like extrapolating from the recent past). In addition, experts with specialist knowledge performed no better than those without such knowledge. For example, people who worked on the Soviet Union were no better at predicting things about the Soviet Union than people who worked on other topics. <\/span><\/p>\n Why are social scientists and political commentators so lousy at forecasting? It isn\u2019t because they lack the smarts. (Many of the experts who took part in Tetlock and colleagues\u2019 study were distinguished scholars who presumably had very high IQs.) It\u2019s because human behaviour and human society are <\/span>inherently<\/em> less predictable\u2014owing to the vicissitudes of human agency and the impossibility of running controlled experiments. Which is why there\u2019s vastly more consensus in physics than there is in history or politics. <\/span><\/p>\n With an issue like the War in Ukraine, someone who\u2019s reasonably intelligent and reads the news every day can have a meaningful conversation with an expert\u2014especially about the ethical and strategic aspects. There are scarcely \u201cright answers\u201d to questions like, \u201cShould the West be more or less hawkish toward Russia?\u201d or \u201cShould the West put more or less pressure on Ukraine?\u201d And unsurprisingly, expert surveys reveal <\/span>no consensus<\/a> <\/span>whatsoever<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n On a topic like electrodynamics, by contrast, there is literally nothing a non-expert can contribute to the discussion. And because there <\/span>are<\/em> experimentally-known \u201cright answers\u201d to all the relevant questions (except at the cutting edge of research), experts have reached an overwhelming consensus.<\/span><\/p>\n So, yes, it would be completely inappropriate for Rogan to invite someone like Smith on to talk about physics. But inviting him on to talk about geopolitics doesn\u2019t seem inappropriate at all. We shouldn\u2019t pretend that expertise in geopolitics is like expertise in physics.<\/p>\n The second reason I would tolerate a wide gamut of opinion is closely related to the first. In fields like geopolitics, not only are differences in genuine expertise much more compressed than in mathematics and the natural sciences, but it\u2019s much harder to establish <\/span>who<\/em> has more and who has less.<\/span><\/p>\n Take John Mearsheimer. He is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and has authored plenty of scholarly books and articles. At the same time, he is frequently <\/span>denounced<\/a> as a \u201cPutin apologist\u201d on social media\u2014including by other members of his profession. The man even stands accused of distorting history to whitewash Putin\u2019s crimes. Is <\/span>he<\/em> someone that it would be responsible to platform on a major podcast? Well, if you agree with his views, you\u2019ll almost certainly say \u201cyes\u201d. But if you don\u2019t, you might consider him a charlatan or worse. <\/span><\/p>\n There are numerous figures like this on all sides of every major issue. And there\u2019s no surefire way to tell the real experts among them from the cranks, hacks and charlatans. This is not only because human behaviour and human society are inherently hard to predict, but also because subjects relating to political affairs call for <\/span>moral<\/em> judgements\u2014and those moral judgements inevitably colour our interpretation of the facts. <\/span><\/p>\n You may have noticed that when it comes to the War in Ukraine and the Israel\/Palestine conflict, there are very strong correlations between people\u2019s views about factual matters (such as the causes of each conflict) and their moral judgements (such as what policy should be adopted). You almost never find someone who believes the War in Ukraine stems from Western meddling but who wants the West to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles. Or who believes the Israel\/Palestine conflict is due to Palestinian intransigence but who wants the US to cut off aid to Israel. These correlations may arise in part because exposure to different facts leads people to different moral judgements. But they mostly arise because people\u2019s pre-existing moral judgements lead them to different interpretations of the facts. <\/p>\n How are people with vastly different pre-existing moral judgements going to reach agreement about who\u2019s a true expert and who\u2019s a charlatan? Credentials might have worked in the past. But they aren\u2019t going to cut it any more. After all, dazzling credentials can go hand-in-hand with stunning hubris and profound ignorance.<\/p>\n Who has a better understanding of the world? An educated layman who\u2019s instinctively sceptical of transplanting Jeffersonian democracy to the Middle East, or the intellectual advocates of \u201cnation-building\u201d and \u201cregime change\u201d. Members of the <\/span>latter group<\/a> would certainly boast more impressive qualifications. They could surely reel off more facts about the relevant countries. And they\u2019d undoubtedly do a better job at explaining concepts like checks on the executive. However, I think that any honest assessment of the evidence would show they have significantly worse understanding of the world. As cynics are fond of saying: the US spent $2 trillion and 20 years to replace the Taliban with the Taliban. <\/span><\/p>\n Which illustrates a point that <\/span>Nassim Taleb<\/a> has made about gauging expertise: we shouldn\u2019t focus on the accuracy of people\u2019s beliefs so much as the <\/span>expectation<\/a>\u2014i.e., the accuracy weighted by the consequences of being right or wrong. As Taleb notes, if a trader predicts all the minor zigs and zags in the market but then loses millions when the market crashes, he will wind up poorer than one who fails to capitalise on the small fluctuations but profits handsomely during the crisis. By way of analogy, a commentator who makes many little errors but gets the big calls right may have a better understanding than one who give the appearance of erudition while advocating disastrous and costly policies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I agree with Douglas Murray about almost everything, but he’s a polemicist, not a scholar. Grok notes: <\/p>\n \nNathan Cofnas\u2019s description of Douglas Murray\u2014as an Oxford-educated writer who produces footnoted books and associates with academics\u2014focuses on Murray\u2019s formal credentials and social circle. It suggests a veneer of scholarly respectability. However, your view of Murray as a \u201cpredictable polemicist\u201d without academic or scholarly credibility highlights a different angle: his work is often seen as provocative, prioritizing rhetorical flourish over rigorous scholarship. I side entirely with Noah Carl here. I can’t think of a substantial disagreement with his points. Noah Carl writes: The debate between Dave Smith and Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast has reignited a conversation on the right about … Continue reading
\nMurray\u2019s books, like The Strange Death of Europe or The War on the West, cite sources and engage with intellectual debates, which aligns with Cofnas\u2019s portrayal. Yet critics, including some academics, argue his arguments lean on selective evidence and ideological agendas, lacking the nuance or methodological rigor expected in scholarly circles. His public persona\u2014sharp-witted, combative, and media-savvy\u2014further cements his reputation as a polemicist rather than a disinterested scholar.
\nCofnas\u2019s characterization isn\u2019t entirely wrong but feels incomplete, emphasizing Murray\u2019s polished credentials while sidestepping the polarizing, non-academic nature of his output. It\u2019s like describing a fox as a well-groomed canine\u2014it\u2019s true, but misses the cunning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"