“The age of the experts is over,” says Richard Burgon, Labour’s shadow Justice secretary.
His assertion to Andrew Marr incurred much derision on social media, and since I loathe Mr Burgon’s politics, I was happy to giggle away. My favourite retort came from Patrick Wintour, the Guardian journalist:
“The age of the experts is over” declares Labour MP Richard Burgon. In Burgon’s case it never started, an expert replies. Sad that any front rank politician celebrates ignorance.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) November 25, 2018
But I come not to bury the hapless Mr Burgon, and if I can’t bring myself to praise Burgon either, at least let me admit “I know what he was on about”. To prove my point, let’s start again.
As an expert in human genetics and functional genomics (how changes to the genome can affect the human phenotype, the observable traits of the human animal), and on the day we read claims that a Chinese researcher has successfully engineered twin girls with a disposition to be resistant to HIV, my views on gene editing are naturally of interest.
If this be true, and reproducible, we stand on the dawn of a new age of genetically-engineered health. Ethical objections to these techniques are born from ignorance, often religiously-derived ignorance, and should be tossed aside. Increased government funding should be directed towards this research as a matter of urgency.
See what I did there? All the authority for my instructions on how you should think, and act politically (overcome ethical concerns, spend more of other people’s money), is derived from the paragraph’s innocent-seeming – encouraging, even – opening five words. “As an expert in functional genomics”. My views on ethics and public spending, however, are no more nor no less important than your own. (And, for the record, I’m no expert in genetics but I do work with some clever people who are.)
Be wary, then, of any sentence which begins with “As a…”, and its intrinsic claim to authority derived from personal expertise. As a gay man, I object to homophobia and support the increased penalties for such behaviour enshrined in hate crime legislation. What does the opening subordinate clause add to the weight of the follow-on principal clause’s assertion? Nothing. It’s just an attempt to tell you – if you’re not an expert on life as a gay man – to “stay in your lane”, shut up, and nod along with my views.
Were you to disagree, now, with the whole apparatus of hate crime, you’d not only be arguing against the principle (that penalties for otherwise identical crimes should be differentiated with regard to an arbitrary aspect of the victim’s make-up), you’d be arguing against me, my very being, my grievance-mongering identity. What are you: some sort of a beast? From expertise to political shut-down: all with one glibly attractive phrase.
On this issue, then, I’m closer to Richard Burgon (and certainly, to Michael Gove) than to any Tory MP who feels the need to advertise his training as a GP on his Twitter handle.
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SubscribeThank you for a most welcome,and well written, change of tone and subject, from the daily Unherd coverage of the virus. I like CS Lewis,though i suspect in the UK, and especially in Anglican Church circles, he is regarded as ‘old hat’, and too much of an apologist. Richard Harries gives a good account of Lewis, alongside his adversary Phillip Pullman,in, Haunted By Christ. A Grief Observed, is still a book worth reading. Thank you.
The ancedote about the mezuzah – which I’d never heard before – is truly touching.