The Icarian Gene: The Rise and Fall of the Expert Class
In his concurrence in United States v. Skrmetti, a case upholding Tennessee’s ban on adolescent transgender treatments, Thomas called for his colleagues to stand against an “expert class” that has dictated both policy and legal conclusions in the United States.
The reference to “experts” is often used to insulate an opinion as self-evidently true on a given question when they speak as a group. It distinguishes the informed from the casual; the certifiably authoritative from the merely interested. Yet, what constitutes an “expert” can be little more than an advanced degree, and the “overwhelming opinion of experts” can be little more than groupthink.
Thomas warned his colleagues that “[t]here are particularly good reasons to question the expert class here, as recent revelations suggest that leading voices in this area have relied on questionable evidence, and have allowed ideology to influence their medical guidance.”
Indeed, those “good reasons” have become increasingly obvious to those outside of the Beltway. The public saw experts line up during the pandemic to support mandatory uses of surgical masks, shutting down schools, and requiring the ruinous six-foot rule of separation. Many of these rules were later found lacking in scientific support. At the same time, dissenting experts, including the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration, were blacklisted, censored, or fired for challenging these views.
We have seen the same orthodoxy on issues ranging from gender dysphoria to COVID measures.
Yes, this article was titled "The Icarian Gene", which I take to be a reference to Icarus.
Icarus, however, had a certain nobility to his efforts. He wanted to help mankind, by bring them the secrets and power of the gods. And for this he was punished.
The experts lacked all nobility, and they certainly did not want to help mankind. They wanted to make us subjects in the kingdoms of their own fear and inanity.
The experts are more like another "myth"; The Emperor's New Clothes."
No reasonable person was fooled by Transgenderism. And few of us who could do math, and had our brains engaged, could not walk past natural fears, to get around the corner and see the truth of the lie of COVID and it's bride, the vaccine.
Again Emperor's New Clothes.
The Experts were so proud of themselves in their regalia. They were positively giddy. And they attempted to force us all to praise them through compliance.
On the other hand, the reality of the destruction of the lives of children, and the deaths, and mutilations that resulted from the short-lived kingdom of the experts certainly required a better "myth" for comparison's sake.
Got any ideas?