Tales of rebellion against externally-opaque meritocracies

A new analysis from LessWrong explores the tension between intellectual meritocracies and the public's perception of them. The author argues that when expert groups work on complex problems without easily verifiable results, they are often mistaken for self-dealing cabals rather than skilled professionals. To illustrate this, the piece cites the backlash against string theory in the two thousands and a nineteen seventy-nine political coup within the American Philosophical Association.

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