Why do people dismiss experts?

Question

Whenever there's a mystery - the Bosnian pyramids, the Great Pyramid at Giza, the 'face' on Mars, Atlantis, climate change - there's an upsurge in the opinion that experts don't know anything and are very keen keep things quiet and maintain the orthodoxy. Why is this?

Experts have trained for many years to be good at what they do and to question the orthodoxy in order to keep the debate alive (no debate = no job). Backing a revolutionary theory is a good way to make your name. So why do the public seem to trust mathematicians who claim they can prove historical events?

Answer 1

Good question. As a historian-sociologist (DA~M, now I'm the "expert"!), I see four reasons:
1) some people have emotional problems; inventing their own theories can make them feel more important.
2) we live in a society that is "run" by impersonal rules and structures made up by experts. And we tend to rebel at this--questioning the experts' "expertise" is a way of doing this
3) we have taken far too much of the "magic" out of life in our quest for rationalized explanations and science (mistakenly so, in my opinion). When a mystery arises, we want to think of it as proof tht everything isn't all cut-and-dried-maybe there really is a unicorn out there somewhere, after all.
4) Occasionally, someone looks at a situation from a fresh persepctive and sees what the experts miss. And we'd all like to be able to make discoveries too.

Personally, i think #3 is the main cause:

"To be 'matter-of-fact" about the real world is to fall into fantasy--and dull fantasy, at that."
--Robert Heinlein.

Answer 2

Academic study is partially to discover the truth or discover the obvious, but not to the naked eye. Presumably in history, descendents are able to suggest possible reasons for how the pyramids etc were built, plausible reasons as the builders and architects then were human, the human mind thinks along the same routes regardless of time. we know how important it is to liase theory with reality. If someone has a lot of theoretical knowledge ie the Phd they are knowledgeable in their area but not necessarily so in other areas, someone with the same age but a good number of years of practical experience might make for a better expert, mathematics has either a right answer or a wrong answer whereas the other subjects are seen to very very occasionally be tarnished by people using their own opinions and personalities plus temperaments to form and lead the main argument. But personally I respect all experts, it must take a hugh love for the subject in order to gain the knowledge etc from it.

Answer 3

There are two reasons people dismiss experts.

The first is not all experts on a topic agree. For instance, look at global warming. "Experts" say man is destroying the planet. But then there are other "experts" who say Mars, Saturn, etc. are getting warmer and since man is not on those planets, why assume all the planets are warming because of the sun except earth?

The other reason is many people chose to believe experts who agree with them, therefore dismiss experts who don't.

Unfortunately, many experts have agendas. These could be political or monetary, or both. Sometimes if you put forth a view, you get money. Other times, you get backing of politicians.

Since experts don't agree, how could some of them not be dismissed?

Answer 4

There are experts and then there are experts. Not all black belt karate experts win the fight for example. Some experts are just better than others. You compare and contrast what they have to say and examine the evidence used to back up their claims. So the burden is upon you to have the critical thinking skills and education to evaluate what the experts are claiming.

As P.T. Barnum once said: There's a sucker born every minute, and he was an expert!

Answer 5

Maybe because mathematicians evidence is set in stone...
Whereas with evidence given by other experts there is always a chance that things could have been a little more different to what we think.
I prefer the experts to the mathematicians.
It leaves a little mystery that I think is well needed in this day and age.

Answer 6

I know! Look at the hysterical response to genetically modified food. Some 17 year-old twit, with a GCSE in Geography and 1 year as an adult "knows better" than a Genetics expert in what is a cutting-edge area of science. Yet there has NEVER been any evidence that GMF is dangerous. CRAZY!
I seem to remember a similar response to the inventing of machines during the Industrial Revolution.
Neo-Luddites!

Answer 7

because most expert theory's are based on speculation for example an expert can tell you the size and looks of a dinosaur from bones found but can only speculate on how they lived or died its how you as an individual accept their speculation if a plane crashes in the jungle 1000yrs later when an archaeologist finds one of the life jackets he'll say there must have been a river here

Answer 8

It takes a bit of expertise to recognize expertise in someone else.

In a debate between an astrophysicist and an astrologer, someone with a bit of scientific training will understand that the astrologer is bluffing, hoaxing and jargonizing and that the astrophysicist is laying things out as they really are. But someone lacking that bit of scientific training will not know which debater to believe. And if the astrologer "sounds good," he might get the majority of the win-the-debate votes.

People in general do not believe in accordance with expertise. Rather, they believe in accordance with that they hear the most often; i.e., with bandwidth in the popular media (TV). Since the Jews control most of the popular media, they are able to choose what most people will believe most of the time. And that lets them control politics, fabricate historical lies, and perpetrate financial frauds. (Did you know that the money system in use in the USA - the Federal Reserve System - is a Jewish fraud? The money system itself, yes.)

But people believe their popular media channels, and they don't have the experience necessary for judging hokum from genuine expertise.

Answer 9

Because every expert has a different view. Did you watch the Channel 4 programme about global warning? Professors and academics all saying it was nonsense, and I believe them, but still the governments are trying to get money out of us to stop something that is not happening.

Answer 10

"Experts" are not well-trusted because they proclaim they are experts and because they usually have an agenda that goes with their theories. Training has nothing to do with it. Theories are just that: theories, and they need to be tested constantly for their validity.

Chow!!