It's democracy's greatest flaw. Stupid people think sovereign equality means their opinion is as valid as an expert's knowledge. Note that expertise has not decreased, though. On the contrary, one of democracy's great strengths is how it amplifies and spreads expertise.
We have not been able to come up with a true meritocracy based on intelligence and wisdom yet. And Plato's Republic is hell on Earth. So we're stuck with this.
Perhaps we need a democracy punctuated with wars to cull the bottom. Peaceful democratic states could have massive attrition battles every 20 years far away from populated places. We could use Iowa.
Spoken like a true elitist. Not surprising, though, hardly.
The "flaw" is hardly with democracy. The flaw is with lawyers and the "experts" themselves. You've all heard discussion on another thread of how a DA "can get a ham sandwich indicted". Well, in both criminal AND civil litigation, the sad truth is, you can pretty much get a so-called "expert" to testify to virtually anything. It's especially important in civil litigation, where a qualified expert's opinion (more on that later) will almost always allow a plaintiff to escape summary judgment motions on the most ridiculous of cases. The "expert" field is a cottage industry, and it's motivated by certain practitioners who will say and do almost anything to get paid. And they get paid enormously well. So you could say it's a greed issue as well.
The prevalence of "junk science" in virtually all fields - medical, engineering, etc. ad nauseum - can be traced to the Federal Courts' adoption of the so-called
Daubert standard (based on the
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals 1993 case), which sets up a test for admissibility of expert testimony. It was a US Supreme Court case where liberal Justice Blackmun (ironically a Nixon appointee) broadened the admissibility of fringe expert testimony/theories, replacing the
Frye standard. The link below explains the case and sequence of events a little more thoroughly ... but since then, "expert" testimony has boomed as academics and retired practitioners fought with each other to get in line to grab their slice of the pie:
https://www.forensisgroup.com/dauber...ert-testimony/
With the explosion of the "expert" cottage industry in all areas of litigation, there are now many databases utilized in litigation practice which tracks "expert" opinions on various cases on an expert-by-expert basis. It is quite humorous when a so-called "expert" has irreconcilable testimony on the record on both sides of an issue. You can imagine how well that plays in front of a civil jury. But regardless, the "expert" still gets paid.
So much for "(coming) up with a true meritocracy based on intelligence and wisdom" ...