Some years ago, Dr. Robert Mendelsohn wrote a provocative book titled Confessions of a Medical Heretic. Dr. Mendelsohn’s thesis was essentially that the trend toward medical interventionism – i.e., the willingness of doctors to intrude into the processes of the human body for ever vaguer and less compelling reasons – was accelerating at a …
Category: experts
Sep 15 2023
Bootlickers Disguise Bootlicking as Shoe Shining
Most folks have probably encountered a situation like this. You’re arguing on social media with some Lefty, and he copies and pastes some links he dug up on Google as evidence his point of view is right, and you’re just an idiot who hates fact-based rational thought. After all, how can you ignore the opinion …
Apr 22 2023
The Follies Of Experts
Your Curmudgeon is coming to believe that “experts” and the relentless promotion thereof exist solely to reinforce “official” BS and intimidate those who see through it. Perhaps he’s even a bit late to the party, as that seems to be a burgeoning recognition among Americans generally. Nevertheless, it’s a notion that deserves some exploration, …
Feb 10 2023
Day From Hell Alert
The C.S.O. has another procedure scheduled for later this morning. Once again it will involve a long drive, a lot of cutting (for her) and a lot of waiting (for me), a long drive back, and then postoperative care most of which will fall on my shoulders. When we get back there will be …
Jan 03 2023
It’s Hard…
…to be as frequently and consistently wrong as the notorious Paul Ehrlich. Nevertheless, the mainstream media can’t seem to stay away from him: CBS’s “60 Minutes” welcomed the new year with a doomsday message from Paul Ehrlich, a well known eugenicist who has called for population control due to ‘limited resources’ on planet …
Apr 22 2022
Perhaps It’s To Be Expected
Persons who develop high expertise in a specialty purely hate to see that specialty abused. That’s certainly the case with me. During my wage-earning years (I refuse to call them my “working years;” I work more and harder today than I ever did when I was getting paid for it), I became an expert …
Feb 25 2022
Organic, Whole, And With The Dirt Still On It!
Ahhh, Friday. Just as with Mondays, even retirees still look forward to them. No, it doesn’t make sense. Does it need to? Have a few squibs before I sit down to compose the main event for today. *** “Experts” Gerard Van der Leun has done so much good stuff for so long …
Feb 09 2022
Determined Not To Say The “Obvious”
This is a very short clip, yet critically important. Tucker Carlson asked why public officials ignore the significantly irregular rise in deaths in the last quarter of 2021. Adding “Why aren’t they screaming.” For some reason Charlie Kirk simply did not come up with one particular motivation even though he broke the story. It is …
Oct 04 2021
The Coronated, The Venerated, And The Skepticated
[Cannot be sung to the tune of “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads.” Don’t even try. Please!] There have been times when, after watching supposedly intelligent people swallow utter bilge in Great-Lakes quantities, I have asked myself “Which of us is crazy? Are we living in Andrew Klavan’s Empire of Lies for real?” The answer …
Jun 03 2021
Suspicions Confirmed
You knew there was something dodgy, as our English cousins would say, about the way the government and the media heaped endless plaudits on Anthony Fauci. You knew, from the way Big Tech defended Fauci’s pronouncements from contradiction, close scrutiny, or even analytical discussion, that there were reasons to question them—and him. You knew, …
May 31 2021
Experts: The Quintessential Tragedy
Good morning, Gentle Readers. I haven’t fallen deathly ill, taken a vow of inscripience (i.e., a vow not to write), or been kidnapped by the Scientologists. I’ve just been working feverishly on a novel you’ll soon be declining to purchase. At any rate, I trust you’ve all had pleasant weekends. Remember that today is …
Apr 26 2021
Misplaced Faiths
Some years ago – I hesitate to say how many – a colleague and I got into a wrangle about the compiler he was using in his development work. I’d found a fault in the generated code – I did my debugging in machine language, back then – and, upon comparing it to the …
Apr 09 2021
Authority Versus Evidence Part 2: When Authorities Collide
Those without expertise who nevertheless posture as authorities do so for a range of reasons, but most common among them is the desire to promulgate a falsehood. The causal logic behind this is unfortunately quite compelling. If you want people to believe a thesis that is untrue, when there are sources of information that …
Mar 30 2021
The Experts, The Politicians, And The Wuhan Virus
Karl Denninger has produced a compendium of “expert” errors and lies about the Chinese Coronavirus and its social and political outcroppings. It’s an exceptionally useful item that everyone should read. If you’ve harbored suspicions that the Kung Flu has little to do with public health and a lot more to do with the aspirations …
Sep 24 2019
Valid Argumentation And Expertise
The list of fallacies relevant to argument includes one that isn’t, strictly speaking, a fallacy under all circumstances: the “argument from authority.” If we read authority to mean expert status, there is a place for it in arguments over substantive matters. Problems with expertise-based arguments arise in two venues: The validation of the …
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