I Beseech You, in the Bowels of Christ, Think it Possible You May Be Mistaken

In 1906, the Bronx Zoo opened an extraordinary new exhibit that was designed to improve the scientific knowledge of zoo patrons: in the Monkey House, interacting with the primates, they displayed a young Congoloese man named Ota Benga, who had also been put on exhibit at the Natural History Museum and the 1904 World's Fair. The exhibit helped laymen to understand the "missing link" in the evolutionary progress from monkeys to humans; as such, it reflected the very latest in racial science, as it was being objectively studied by scholars like the distinguished Harvard PhD and University of Chicago Professor Charles B. Davenport, the author of several highly regarded monographs (on, for example, the objective use of quantitative methods in scientific inquiry). Unfortunately, a group of black clergymen objected to the display, arguing that Ota Benga was a human being who should be treated with dignity. Even back then, ladies and gentlemen, the Bible-thumpers were questioning science.

I mention all of this because of a must-see interview this week with Christina Romer, the extremely distinguished U.C. Berkeley professor who holds an endowed chair in her field. Romer sat down with the important intellectual Bill Maher to  discuss the recent S&P downgrade of the federal government's creditworthiness. Maher and Romer agreed that the U.S. is in trouble because of the ignorance of the masses, who have of late questioned the wisdom of Neo-Keynesian economic science. This really has to be seen to be believed, and here's the video: Romer tells Maher that she the science in question is simply correct, and cannot be properly questioned: "That's what we teach our undergraduates, and I certainly try to teach them the truth. And so it is, I think, a very known and accepted idea and fact, and the empirical evidence is definitely there, and people just want to say the sky is green."

And then Maher responds with this extraordinary question, dripping with smugness: "Do you feel a kinship, economists like yourself, with climate scientists? Because it seems like you're both people who know real things, that you study in a college... And then, how should I put it, the stupid people, who don't know things, who at least used to know they were stupid, but now they've been Palinized -- and, and, and they sort of. I'm just saying, isn't it frustrating when people who don't know anything about the subject you're so versed in get an equal vote in the debate?"

Romer agrees that "it is frustrating," and concludes that, "A lot of times, policy would be better if we listened to the experts." This is why she so admired President Obama while she worked for him, you see, because he always wanted to know "the truth."

But then here's the next thing they discuss. Maher: "But this week we found out that the collapse, the real collapse that happened, you know, in 2008, was way worse than we thought."

So they have a whole smug and confident conversation about the need to listen to the experts instead of hearing the "stupid people," and then they transition directly to a discussion about the failure of expertise to develop accurate information -- a discussion about a failure of professional, expert knowledge.

But ten seconds later, unblinking, Maher is right back at it, discussing the need for a stimulus program designed by experts: "It seems like the Democrats are always afraid to make the case, because they'll get shouted down by those people who know less."

1.) We need to listen to the experts, 2.) who completely misunderstood the dimensions of the problem, 3.) and we need to listen to the experts. Do these people hear themselves speak?

The first thing anyone does in grad school is slog through the "march of schools": all the once-fashionable ideas that used to prevail in our field, but have now been torn down. And yet we have professors like Christina Romer who know without the slightest question that oh yes, we possess "the truth," and people who question it should learn to defer to "the experts."

This possession of "the truth" is the very thing that academia should never be; at their best, scholarly communities are defined by their skepticism and humility, not by their certitude.

Below, an image from Christina Romer's expert early-2009 report, from her days in government, on the future effects of federal stimulus legislation.