"Popular Scientism"

There's been an awful lot of public debate lately about things that most people are grossly unqualified to discuss. This has not stopped them from doing so. C.S. Lewis elegantly touches on this — apparently it was a problem even in his day — in The Discarded Image, his masterwork on the Middle Ages.

In our age I think it would be fair to say that the ease with which a scientific theory assumes the dignity and rigidity of fact varies inversely with the individual's scientific education. In discussion with wholly uneducated audiences I have sometimes found matter which real scientists would regard as highly speculative more firmly believed than many things within our real knowledge; the popular imago of the Cave Man ranked as hard fact, and the life of Caesar or Napoleon as doubtful rumour. We must not, however, hastily assume that the situation was quite the same in the Middle Ages. The mass media which have in our time created a popular scientism, a caricature of the true sciences, did not then exist. The ignorant were more aware of their ignorance then than now.

The problem is not ignorance; the majority of people have been and will remain ignorant about most things. The problem is that we're not aware of it. We have a large contingent of loud, angry, and increasingly armed Americans who are under the impression that they are being told the truth by popular demagogues. (Come to think of it, one doesn't hear much about unpopular demagogues, does one?) It's human nature, I suppose, to seize on "facts" that confirm our prejudices. But it is not humble, and it is not wise. We must learn to accept our own ignorance.

(But then, where does this leave us? Are we to submit to the "experts", with their "professional opinions"? This is almost equally intolerable. Is there some sort of tertium quid to be found, here?)