Is it normal to be incredibly irritated when "experts" spew nonsense?

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9 Comments

Often, when I'm on sites like Yahoo! Answers I see Top Contributors and people who call themselves experts spew random BS and have no idea about what they are talking about. For example, there was one person who was "certified" in legal matters with over 20 years of experience yet he/she consistently spewed extremely ignorant misinformation and misused terminology, not to mention applying the ignorance to other countries whose laws he/she probably knows nothing about. I also saw some worker for archaeologists saying stuff like how Native Americans are older than the entire human race. Then there are also some "leading experts" saying stuff like how Muslims who don't kill and/or massacre groups of people are rare. Then there was this psychology graduate who spouted ignorance about one of the psychological definitions, and whose answer sounded no more knowledgeable than from someone who takes Fox News to be absolute truth. And the sad part is the almost all of these people were classed as one of the most trusted users.

I am not talking about when experts reveal counterintuitive facts based on studies or evidence, or opinions or best guesses based on facts. I am talking about when "experts" online spew absolute rubbish that is factually, statistically and scientifically incorrect, and then hide behind their certifications.

Is it normal to be incredibly irritated with this?

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86% Normal
Based on 21 votes (18 yes)
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Comments ( 9 )
  • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk
    9 years ago

    im an expertician and i dont not disagree with that

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  • MangoTango
    9 years ago

    Consultants are always right, errr.

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  • mastercheff
    9 years ago

    Yea that's annoying..

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  • pastor_of_muppets
    9 years ago

    It's better to fart and stink a little...than to keep it in and become a cripple.

    *drops mic*

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    • RoseIsabella
      9 years ago

      Debilitating gas.

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  • dom180
    9 years ago

    I hate to defend the academic closed shop, but here goes.

    Obviously having a qualification, or saying you have one, doesn't make you right about anyhing. That said, any good constructivist academic will recognise that there are many valid perspectives. It sounds to me like you just don't want to accept that there are people who can substantiate views which are different to yours. I'm not defending idiot "journalists" on news media, but there's a big difference between being intellectually dishonest and just disagreeing.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      9 years ago

      You are misinterpreting what I am saying.

      I am not talking about experts having different perspectives or views on things. Experts are allowed to have opinions and interpret evidence differently. I don't mind when an expert expresses an opinion over something, or tries his/her to take a side in an ambiguous situation in which knowledge is always fallible, such as a priest interpreting some ambiguous Bible verses. That is perfectly fine.

      What I am talking about, however, is when "experts" are actually either intellectually ignorant or dishonest about established unambiguous facts and spew outright misinformation about them. For example, "I'm a certified lawyer and everywhere in the USA the drinking age is 18" or "I'm a dog physiologist and feeding your dog chocolate is good for them, especially if it has lots of therobromine". Stuff like that are NOT a matter of opinion, but a matter of facts.

      As Moynihan said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts".

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      • dom180
        9 years ago

        To take one of your examples: it's certainly not factually wrong to say that massacres carried out by Muslims are rare. In the grand scheme of things I think it's perfectly valid to argue that they're rare. At the very least it's clearly a more complicated discussion than you're making it out to be, and you're erasing the construction of knowledge from that discussion in favour of neat objectivism. Academia isn't an encyclopedia of facts, objective and neat. It's an on-going construction of knowledge in a social context.

        Same goes your dog example. I'm betting if you looked hard enough you'd find a piece of academic literature or two suggesting you're wrong about the chocolate. Even if you can't, that doesn't prove all the evidence in your favour isn't a result of chance and actually chocolate is harmless. Of course your law example is different, but that's because it's a completely different type of claim. Absolute law is codified and preconstructed by people. Students of law are studying a construction, a fictional world.

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        • Anonymous Post Author
          9 years ago

          I wasn't talking about how people saying that massacres carried out by Muslims are rare. I was talking about someone who said that Muslims who DON'T blow themselves up and commit terror acts are rare.

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