What Happens When a Society Stops Trusting Experts?

What Happens When a Society Stops Trusting Experts?

Trust in experts, scientists, doctors, economists, public health officials, and other specialists, forms a cornerstone of modern societies.

Complex problems like pandemics, climate dynamics, economic policy, and technological regulation require specialized knowledge that most people cannot acquire firsthand.

When that trust erodes, the consequences ripple through public health, governance, innovation, and social cohesion.

Recent data shows measurable declines. In the U.S., confidence in medical scientists dropped notably during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

One tracking effort found trust in physicians and hospitals falling from about 71.5% in early 2020 to around 40% by early 2024.

Broader trust in scientists has followed a similar, if somewhat less steep, trajectory, with partisan gaps widening significantly.

Globally, while most people in many countries still report moderate-to-high trust in scientists, minorities of skeptics can influence policy and behavior when amplified.

Why Trust Erodes

Skepticism toward experts is not new, but several factors have intensified it:

• Perceived and real failures: Events like the 2008 financial crisis, intelligence failures before the Iraq War, shifting public health guidance during COVID-19 (e.g., on masks or origins), and institutional scandals have fueled doubts. When experts or institutions appear overconfident, politically motivated, or wrong, credibility suffers.

• Politicization: Trust has become increasingly partisan. Surveys show Democrats and Republicans diverging sharply on issues involving science, government agencies, and media. When expertise aligns too closely with one political tribe, the other withdraws confidence.

• Information environment: Social media and alternative sources allow rapid dissemination of counter-narratives, sometimes accurate critiques and sometimes misinformation. People can easily find “experts” who confirm their priors, fragmenting shared reality.

• Incentives and distance: Experts can seem detached from everyday concerns, captured by funding sources, prestige, or ideology. Failures to acknowledge uncertainty or admit errors compound the problem.

Healthy skepticism is a feature of open societies, it drives accountability and progress.

Science advances through falsification and debate, not blind deference.

But when skepticism hardens into reflexive dismissal, societies face deeper challenges.

The Consequences

Public health and safety suffer first. Lower trust correlates with reduced vaccine uptake, hesitation during emergencies, and poorer compliance with evidence-based measures.

This has contributed to outbreaks of preventable diseases and complicates responses to new threats. During COVID, trust erosion affected behaviors with measurable human costs.

Policy and governance become harder. Addressing collective action problems, climate adaptation, fiscal sustainability, infrastructure, relies on broad acceptance of expert consensus.

Without it, polarization stalls decisions, favors short-term populism, or leads to inconsistent policies that swing with electoral cycles.

Low trust also hampers government legitimacy and voluntary cooperation.

Innovation and progress slow. While skepticism can challenge flawed paradigms, wholesale rejection of expertise risks undervaluing rigorous evidence.

Societies that dismiss specialized knowledge may fall behind in technology, medicine, and economics. Historical examples, such as ideological interference in science (e.g., Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union), show how rejecting expert methods for political reasons can cause stagnation or harm.

Social cohesion frays. Trust in experts often tracks with interpersonal and institutional trust.

As these decline together, echo chambers deepen, conspiracy thinking rises, and people turn to peers or influencers over evidence.

This can exacerbate divisions and make compromise rarer.

On the positive side, distrust can spur reform.

It has highlighted issues like conflicts of interest in research, overreach by agencies, and the need for better communication of uncertainty.

Movements emphasizing transparency, replication, and open data respond to these pressures.

Historical Parallels and Lessons

History offers warnings. Periods of elite disconnect or institutional failure, pre-revolutionary France, the Weimar Republic, or cultural revolutions, often saw expertise attacked amid broader crises.

Outcomes ranged from renewal to chaos. Modern democracies have built-in advantages: decentralized knowledge, free speech, and competitive markets for ideas. But these work best when paired with mechanisms that maintain trustworthiness.

Experts are fallible humans. They disagree, err, and sometimes overstep.

The solution is not blind faith or total rejection, but a culture of principled skepticism: demand evidence, transparency, and humility from experts while recognizing that dismissing entire domains of knowledge is rarely wise.

Rebuilding Trust

Restoration requires effort on multiple fronts:

• Experts and institutions must prioritize competence, integrity, and clear acknowledgment of limits. Admit errors quickly and separate science from advocacy.

• Policymakers should insulate key functions (e.g., career scientists) from short-term politics while ensuring accountability.

• The public and media benefit from improved scientific literacy, critical thinking education, and platforms that reward nuance over sensationalism.

• Individuals can practice “epistemic humility”, recognizing personal knowledge gaps while scrutinizing claims.

A society that stops trusting experts entirely risks replacing evidence with vibes, credentials with charisma, and deliberation with tribalism.

Conversely, reflexive deference invites capture and error.

The healthiest path lies in calibrated trust: respect for genuine expertise earned through track records, transparency, and results, combined with vigilant oversight.

In an era of rapid technological and global change, discarding the tools of specialized knowledge is not empowerment; it is self-sabotage.

Reaffirming the value of truth-seeking, whatever its source, offers a more durable foundation.

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