Hello, I'm Dana Taylor, and this is a special episode of USA Today's The Excerpt.

What happened when we stopped trusting experts? This isn't just a philosophical question. Partisan battles have crept into nearly every facet of American society, from science to entertainment. Political scientist Roger Pelke Jr. argues it's not just bad for science. It's dangerous for democracy itself. Roger is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author

of the Substack, The Honest Broker. Thanks for joining me, Roger. Dana, great to be with you.

You write that democracy as a collaboration between experts and non-experts, citing the early

20th century political scientist, Omar Eric Schetznyder. How is this dynamic between those who are

experts and those who aren't evolved in the digital age? Yeah, we have this crazy idea in our

society that anyone can participate in the political process, all of us who are eligible can vote,

any of us can run for office that are eligible and be elected,

and you don't have to be an expert in anything. At the same time, to make society go, to make

society function, we need air traffic control, we need nuclear power plants, we have to deliver

clean water, we have to protect the environment. We had to have a military, and that requires

considerable expertise. And so it is a real fundamental aspect of modern democracy

that as society becomes more technologically oriented, the tensions between democratic governance,

everyone, and the necessary role of expertise, a very specialized group, is going to be in

some kind of attention. And that's just

become more pronounced in the 21st century. You emphasize that expertise is not synonymous with

credentials, such as a college degree, a PhD, or an MD. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Yeah, experts can be found all throughout society and all sorts of roles. Sometimes we fall into

the trap of thinking that you have to go to an elite university or you have to be wearing a lab coat

to be an expert in something. But there's plenty of people who in their day-to-day jobs have

expertise, whether they're farmers or electricians or mechanics or mothers or fathers. Functioning in

society requires a lot of specialized expertise

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