I don’t want love –The Antlers

About a week ago, deep in the woods of northern Maine at the base of Mount Katahdin, I took part in a great conversation. It was about nuclear energy and it happened after about five pints of Pabst Blue Ribbon. No one around this specific campfire was an expert on nuclear energy and the reason why it was such a great conversation is that we all were aware of that fact. We had all read different sources and, as a result, had different opinions on the issue. It was clear that we were quoting different experts and that the problem had to be resolved at the expert level and not around our campfire. If Ethan Siegel, blogger at Starts With a Bang, were there he would have loved it.

I’ve always have an uneasy feeling about the word ‘expert’. I get a feeling of helplessness when I have to put stock in an expert because, as we all know, experts can be wrong but often, as we also all know, a lot of times there’s no one else to turn to. We end up being stuck in a situation where experts have a lot of important things to teach and show us but we need to hold them to account on something they know way more than us about. That’s impossible.

Siegel’s post from yesterday, Science could have it all wrong. But…, makes the important point that sometimes it’s OK to disagree with experts but you need really good reasons beyond, “sometimes experts make mistakes.”

Everybody, sometimes, about some things, is wrong. I have posted a number of things here — on this very site — that are wrong. (Follow the link for a recent example.)

But — apparently — I’m very unusual. I like it when I’m wrong. Instead of being the teacher, it gives me an opportunity to learn something new. It gives me a chance to improve myself and my understanding of things. It often connects me, intellectually, with a new point of view and a new set of (usually, quite admirable) people.

If you cannot be wrong, you cannot learn. And if you think that nobody else can do anything right, you are missing out on learning about everything that you yourself are not an expert in, which is most things.

So there was a lot of information here, and you probably have a lot of thoughts and opinions, and I want to hear it. Those of you who don’t trust any (or all?) of the “consensus” ideas put forth here, why don’t you? Those of you who think you know better than the experts in these fields, why do you?

I know one thing, the people I was with around that campfire are experts at knowing when we’re not experts which is an important quality to have. A lesser known fact is that we’re also experts at coming up with new words that will never be spoken in public.