E Before I Makes It Weird.
I’m keeping it weird for one more post, as many of you seem to enjoy this stuff. Fear not, if you’re not a fan, I have fiction, personal essays, and other fun stuff in the queue.
OK. Here are some more thoughts I’ve been having recently. I see a connection, but maybe that’s because everything seems connected to the person thinking them?
Experts once recommended “safe” cigarettes, leaded gasoline, chloral floral carbons, and radium. Experts also told us to eat eggs, not to eat eggs, to only eat yolks, and to only eat the whites. Experts have even waffled so many times between embracing and vilifying plastic and paper bags that I’m still not sure which one to use. So, I get why Average Joes are pointing fingers at experts for “not being experts.”
But, and this is a huge BUTT, if we are going to disavow experts, we shouldn’t replace them with “people with charisma” as our barometers of truth. And, just to be clear, I’m not a fan of “canceling expertise.” I just understand how difficult “time will tell” is to explain to the average “I’m too impatient to wait” human. But maybe, just maybe, we could try a middle path, wherein we respect both sides, so here’s my defense of "experts,” which I call “LREA” (Let’s Respect Experts Again)!
Experts keep us safe. They’re why planes take off, fly, and land, they’re why medicine comes in the right doses, and they even understand how to plan crop rotations and food supply chains so we can weather pretty major disruptions and still get food to 7 billion stomachs. As a great, wise friend of mine often says (I’m paraphrasing), “Humanity has not only figured out how to feed 7 billion people a day, but we’ve also figured out how to feed all the animals to feed them, and what’s really impressive is that these same experts have figured out how to safely get rid of all that waste (I’m talking about feces) without infecting the water and soil, because otherwise, it would kill us.” Thanks, experts!