By Samuel Strait, Reporter at Large – August 17, 2021
The Webster’s Dictionary defines an expert as ” a person who has a
comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of, or skill in a particular
area.” What does that really mean in today’s modern world? Can we be
assured that the politician on the evening news talking about Covid is
such a person? When he dictates certain behaviors, can we be assured
that that same politician has sufficient skill or knowledge to be asking
the public to heed his dictates? When he refers to “following the
science”, can we be assured that the “science” he is referring to , does
in fact come from a comprehensive and authoritative source? Often
times the answer may surprise you. When that politician is referring to
“the science”, nothing is further from the truth.
Medical science for example has become broken into an infinite array of
different specialties, much like science in general. For someone to
truly be an expert in a particular area of medical science would be an
impossible task. The wealth of human knowledge dwarfs comprehension and
couldn’t be assimilated in a mingle mind over a life time of learning
and experience. Very often medical practitioners on the most general
level are continually forced to refer patients to a “specialist”
assuming that the next “expert” up the line will have sufficient
knowledge to diagnose and provide treatment. When the “specialist”
experiences the limits of his or her knowledge, the patient is often
referred onward. Nowhere is any one person in the chain to be
considered an “expert”, but too often the term is applied in deference to
the limits of that person’s knowledge or experience.
Over the past nineteen, going on twenty months, we have faced a
bewildering array of “experts” from our local politicians, public
health, all the way to our Brylcreem-haired Governor Newsom, speaking as if
they are in fact “experts”. Clearly this is not the case. No one
person can possibly be an “expert” about how to deal with the current
Pandemic. As mistakes by our “experts” continue to pile up, perhaps it
is time to redefine what it means to be the purveyor of preventive
advice and just say “to the best of our knowledge” and let each
individual decide what is best. Naturally, it would be difficult for a
person considered an “expert” to defer a decision of such magnitude to a
mere mortal, but the old dictum “my body, my choice” should be the
operative action in this case.
Many people in this day prefer to let others do their thinking for them,
or be convinced that they haven’t the “comprehensive and authoritative
knowledge” to make decisions on their own well being and health. We
have the ingrained knowledge that “experts” know best what is good for
us. As a result many do fall into line despite evidence to the
contrary. “Expert” advice will only go so far, to the limits of the
“expert’s comprehensive knowledge and skill”, then what? There are many
pieces to the puzzle that have yet to be revealed in the current stew of
ideas surrounding the “Pandemic”. It might be a good place to start,
questioning the expertise of these modern day “experts” to determine
what is best for each individual rather than blindly follow the dictates
of someone who is not the expert assumed.
