I also think that more to the point, people demand experts in the field, but then act like the chucklehead in the OP video. It leads to the interesting question of how what is the point of having experts in public policy if the qualifications for being an expert is that they never go against the prevailing ideology of laypeople. An expert is by definition someone who knows considerably more than the average person on a subject. There is no point in HAVING experts at all if at the end of the day their work has to be diluted back to the level of laypeople again.Darth Wong wrote:It reminds me of the "it's just a theory" creationist argument against evolution. It takes 3 seconds to say "It's just a theory". But it takes at least ten minutes to explain the actual concepts of scientific observations, theories, and laws to laypeople with enough detail to make them understand. Worse yet, 90% of whom will lose interest before you're done, because they hated science in high school anyway.
Most peoples' opinions are non-philosophical, ie- they are not really based on whatever arguments they put forth to defend them in an argument. Instead, they are a simple matter of subjective likes and dislikes, which they dress up with pseudo-philosophical arguments that are really nothing more than verbal contrivances.
Except of course in the Creationist definition of "expert", which is anyone who agrees with you that has letters before and after their name.
Listen to the condescending amusement that congresscritter in the OP used in his voice when he addressed Dr. Chu as their resident scientist. It's clear he thinks that since Dr. Chu is a "scientist", he's worthless compared to the "common sense" of normal folk and is out to score a cheap political point against someone who he doesn't expect to be able to articulate a response. There is no fucking respect there. Dr. Chu has spent the majority of his life contributing to the pool of knowledge that exists as a researcher, professor, and administrator of a tremendously important national laboratory, in a heavily accountable environment where "ethics" actually means something. Numbnuts only managed to convince the majority of the monkeys in his district that he should be the Chief Monkey to bring back some bananas from Washington. Who the fuck does he think he is and why should we even expect scientists to be heavily involved in public discourse when the public treats science like it is something to fear and disrespect and at the same time to solve all their problems on demand.
