Tag: experts

Say Goodbye to Experts (Mostly)

Commentary For some time I have been meaning to write about the subject of “experts” but hesitated—until a friend sent me this eloquent quotation on the subject from Winston Churchill: “Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the…


Why We Lost Trust in the Expert Class

Commentary For years, European policymakers had assured the world that the relatively rapid “transition” to “green” energy was the world’s preordained future—regardless of the costs. Accordingly, many European Union governments followed the advice of green experts. They eagerly shut down coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants to transition immediately to “renewable energy.” Most citizens…


The Age of Experts

Commentary “In Holland, everyone is an expert in painting and in tulips.” ~ Albert Camus Once upon a time—and a very good time it was—a man could brandish his doubt in public with a certain degree of dignity and honor. To be unsure was the mark of an inquiring mind, one open to further study,…


WHO Experts Recommend Third Dose of Novavax COVID Vaccine for People With Health Issues

Novavax said on Tuesday the World Health Organization’s (WHO) panel of experts had recommended a third dose of its vaccine, NVX-CoV2373, for immunocompromised persons. The WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, known as SAGE, issued a series of recommendations, including the use of the vaccine in persons with comorbidities, breastfeeding women, and those…


Epic Ruling Invites Future Efforts to Paint Apple as Monopolist: Experts

WASHINGTON—A U.S. judge stopped short of labeling Apple Inc. an “illegal monopolist” on Friday, but the closely-watched ruling provides a roadmap for similar claims against the iPhone maker in the future, legal experts said. Ruling on an antitrust case brought by Epic Games, creator of the online game “Fortnite,” U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers…


Bonfire of the Experts

Commentary A couple of weeks before the completion of the catastrophe of the American presence in Afghanistan—or, if you believe President Joe Biden, the “extraordinary success” of the American evacuation—a Russo-British comedian named Konstantin Kisin published a brilliantly funny thread on Twitter headed: You’re struggling to understand why some people are vaccine hesitant. Let me help…


Beware the Technocratic Virus Spreading Through Our Parliaments

Commentary The word “unprecedented” has been thrown around almost without a thought over the past 18 months. But from lockdowns and border closures to the single largest peacetime budget line item—JobKeeper (A$90 billion)—was anything really unprecedented? Or was everything about our COVID-19 experience, including the onset of unquestioned rule by experts, in fact, very much…


It’s Time to Purge the ‘Experts’

Commentary The United States’ military mission in Afghanistan has collapsed in chaos and ignominy. The catastrophe has many parents. But surely “the experts” upon which our leader relied bear much blame. They were the ones who often failed to comprehend the power of religious belief and the role pride in Islam played in the Taliban’s…


Can We Trust Experts?

Commentary Experts have squandered their credibility in recent public failures. The repeated misjudgments by public health experts over the past year have demonstrated that they didn’t know how to deal with the pandemic. Claiming their decisions were “backed by science,” public health experts recommended a bewildering maze of contradictory rules about masks, and closures of…


Combing Through the Science of COVID

Does wearing a cloth or paper face mask protect you from a virus? Is the PCR test a reliable method for identifying an infection? Do lockdowns help slow the spread? Are there any safe medicines that have successfully treated or prevented COVID-19? Ask these questions to a random selection of people and you’ll probably get…