I know there’s an answer–The Beach Boys

 

I never know quite what to think about experts. In one sense believing an expert is putting your faith in their knowledge or expertise, but how are you supposed to judge an expert from a non-expert? Based on someone else’s word? Based on how many books they’ve written? Based on who they work for?

It’s not easy. So, should we ever even believe experts? It’s tempting to say no but what would it be like to go through life having to research everything you’re interested in or that might affect you. For health purposes, for instance, you’d have to learn human anatomy, epidemiology, statistics, biochemistry–it very clearly impossible for one person to do their own research on their health, never mind economics, politics, culture, style, etc.

So we’re stuck. We feel vulnerable putting our faith in what experts say, but we can’t live without them because we don’t have the time to do all the research ourselves.

I have  feeling The Trouble with Experts–airing on CBC this Thursday at 9pm–is going to hammer away at the faith we have in experts but I’m curious to know if it will suggest what we should do if we have no experts to do the research for us? Either way, I’m looking forward to sitting down–maybe with a glass of wine–and watching this documentary.

Here’s an excerpt from an interview in the Toronto Star with the The Trouble With Experts’ maker Josh Freed:

Q: Which field is the most rife with bad experts?

A: That’s tough to say. I think maybe health. There are a million of those so-called nutrition and diet experts who claim to have specific foods or cures to help you live forever. Many of them are self-made experts who belong to some association. Ben Goldacre (the British doctor who writes yjr weekly Bad Science column in The Guardian) applied for membership in a nutrition consultants’ association in the name of his dead cat, Henrietta. He now has a fancy certificate saying Henrietta is a member.

I wonder if he considers himself an expert on experts…

(via: Ben Goldacre’s Twitter)