That's a good point - though we're not talking about a show dominated by 'PhDs' as you say. Merely that we don't see any at all period. Having a grounded researcher amongst the politicians would allow, we would suggest, the opportunity for 'home truths' to be told should it appear as needed.

Yep you're right James - I think there ought to be a broader and specified set of topics which can be directed in choice of panelists. It requires some foresight in relation to public policy happenings though.

And thanks for the vote - can I decline? :)

Hm Danderson I'm with you until you get to Indigenous issues. Our research suggests we've had just 2% of the panelists emerge from Indigenous backgrounds - really poor I would think.

This is the 12th time Tanya has been on - she's outscored all the pollies including Malcolm Turnbull...

I guess James - I really wonder about the need to have pop stars and comedians on the show - why is it that we need them on as much as we do?

Politicians to me need to be on - but there needs to be some balance there...

If last Monday's episode was anything to go by Q&A is actually pretty damned good overall. The only weak link in the arguments was from the Liberal MP Kelly who really was excruciating with her fixation on dumb criticism of everything labour. She should really not have been there and was in fact brought to task by the "public" representative who fro a venture capitalist was very insightful.

I think the article is an unfair criticism of an otherwise excellent show overall - Q&A has to assume the benefit of the doubt even when it knows some people will misbehave. The criticism of both Catherine Deveny and the Anglican archbishop is not entirely fair to Q&A - we need to see how people who are high profile in the public eye (Deveney was on that influential doco...), and have influence over a considerable number of followers, are either incredibly stupid or intelligent. It so happens this pair was the former more than the latter and I am sure were eye openers to many people. Jensen was surprisingly stupid for someone in such a high position with arguably more influence than the prime minister for many people - jsut goes to show the christian churchers can have just as silly purveyors of logic as the more recently animated alternative religions.

That said, I'd put them on the category of never again!

Insight is a great example of reasoned debate but which gives all sides a voice including the 'experts' (and from different disciplines too). I'd like to see what the ratings difference between the two shows are though - might give us some insight (pardon the pun) into the qanda tale.

Yeah Linus by our counts Germaine has been on a fair bit as have a few other academics. The spread certainly isn't there. I don't think we insinuated that we have climate scientists on when debating 'carbon taxation' - though it couldn't hurt the debate - though it would be really interesting to know why we've never really had an economist from an academy who knows alot about the carbon tax on. We had visits over the years from some pretty high profile characters including Cameron Hepburn.

As for the politics expertise - I guess this is where the political commentators get their seat so often - it does raise the point on how much status and value we give to political pundits in this country (or indeed the other countries too). What I mean is political scientists who can give us low downs on polling, etc, etc.

Be careful what you want - most academics spew quite silly statements and are simply quite boring to listen to. I remember seeing a pro climate change academic being roasted alive by someone who was really playing around with the facts - as indignant as one gets, when a so-called expert was so poor in his logic and unable to defend their case strongly, feebly succumbing to attacks by going silent then its no wonder the public mistrusts expert advice. And some of the worst violations of common sense and abuse of facts has come from incredible naivety on the part of these experts - the need to hype up and crap on is a signature of those wanting to dominate a topic including climate debate in particular with notoriously wrong predictions undermining the field even further over time.

The assumption that academics have clearer logic and street sense compared to members of the public is wishful thinking for most academics sadly!

John you're basing this on? Anecdotal experiences? I appreciate what you're saying but would it not in a debate on carbon taxation for instance be better to have an economist provide their research backed ideas and dare I say 'opinion' or another comedian?

The show never engages (or rarely) with those who research the areas that are of so much cause for concern amongst the regular public.

I base it on the naivety on so many academics in the media.... That is not to say we should not have some - we should - but I think its disingenuous to suggest on matters that are largely big picture thoughtful commentary from other sectors of the community are not relevant. Q&A is overall very good even if some of its panel may not be ideal.

Good points Z though losing the politicians I think loses the purpose of the show though - I think it's important that the political engages with the public through a format like this - it's just the representation of the other panelists that has our concern.

Hi Ian (if I may),

Thanks for your comment. In the original (longer) version of the piece, we had quite a lot on our definition of the expert. It will take some reading into the application of Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty, the valuation of knowledge as power within the citizen from Foucauldian and Gramscian work concerning hegemony, and then a reading of neo-Platonic arguments that each citizen should be his or her own 'philosopher-ruler'.

Basically, citizens need to know far more than they do now which is an argument widely found in studies looking to political knowledge diffusion among electorates. I hope that helps in some way.

No I haven't seen it - thanks for the info. We thought about trying to look for bias but decided that is a difficult thing to establish. However, if it is true that there is right wing bias I would only assume that there is an attempt to battle from the ABC any suggestion of left wing bias. This might have been evident in that climate change special where Clive Palmer was seated on the panel - we wonder why?

Ian I understand your cynicism - I can only say that I still believe that there is something inherently good about QandA's format that I would like to see reinvigorated. The engagement of politician with the public in a very open forum like this is what is needed to avoid the one liners we see on the news at 6o'clock (or whenever the news you watch airs). Pollies thrive on the 'dorothy dixers' or the 'loaded political questions' in question time, we need something to open that up further.

Though in it's current form, there's unlikely I feel to be anything 'insightful' coming from qanda - maybe. And I appreciate your opinion - humble or otherwise :)

I do not see why "please" is necessary in the way you seemed to have put it. Why is my description unsuitable in your opinion? It involves reading, thinking, forming your own contingent position from that data, and then in turn becoming more of an expert in that one respect.

If I just "told" you, what would that then bring? I am not in the business of holding hegemony of knowledge but participating in its dispersal and in turn learning from others that do the same.

But to try to "tell" what expertise is - tenuously of course - for us in as few words as possible: it is someone that ticks certain boxes. PhD through research from a globally recognised institution, active research profile, seen by others with PhDs and active research as being a peer, someone with peer-reviewed publications in journals and or major academic presses and also someone who has many years of practical experience in a given area that has had its own flavourings of research and collaboration with peers both within and without the academy.

I would also like to include indigenous expertise - knowledge forms for example in Australia built through arduous and long training to master languages and dream times.

But this is just the contingent frame we built for the show! We claim no authority over the definitional aspect of expertise. That would at least require a major post-foundational, complex, capacious and inclusive study across all languages, times and spaces.

I might add also I'm not a fan of Foucault, but I'd like to know why he's so easily dismissed - I'm pretty sure many academics across the 'social science' dults would disagree.

Ian,

My apologies this happens to be the busiest time of year, and I can't get into massive online debates on what you consider to be expertise. I get you don't like academia, that's fine, but doesn't mean I agree.

Your view is confronts a range of issues for which I don't have time to answer. Suffice to say that I will say this, if you believe that peer review is simply ticking boxes and saying the right things, then the whole academic system is pointless. The model of peer review is simply useless.

I disagree. Our point however is not to get into debates about whether the peer review process is rigourous enough but rather to express disappointment at the lack of so called 'expertise' on the show. At least people in your closed world view inside the academy who have 'ticked the boxes' at least have a research background which extends beyond opinion. Most of the panelists these days have nothing like that. Our concern with the show is that it doesn't address any research at all...just opinions of lay public commentators from comedians to journos.

It's very frustrating David - there's great opportunity in this program - but well, at the moment nothing is changing...