I keep on bumping into articles and true stories in books about experts who made pronouncements and were proven wrong. Examples include those who said a four minute mile is impossible (as I posted recently), doctors who said a baby has no chance of survival (she went on to marry and have children), and doctors who said an autistic child would never talk and he went on to become a professor.
Experts share their expertise on politics, the economy, world events and the weather and are not infallible.
What is their track record? Are they way more right than wrong? I don't know. I know that we revere experts and take their word for whatever is their topic. Or we take their word when it coincides with our beliefs.
Perhaps G-d makes them wrong some of the time in order to give us a chance to bring Him into the picture. If experts were right 100% of the time, it would make it almost impossible to have hope, to believe in a different outcome. Being wrong some of the time ought to make the experts humble. At least, it should reinforce our belief that G-d is in control.
Experts should preface their opinions by saying that "in my experience" or "the current prevailing opinion is" or "according to our current knowledge" and so on. They should know by now that today's common knowledge will be tomorrow's old wives tale. The only thing that someone can really be an expert on is history and probably math. Just about everything else is subject to change.
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