From Kevin Williamson In The National Review, A Vaccine against Chaos

The prestige of the old elites was undermined by their excesses, and the prestige of the new elites — scientists, “experts,” politicians — has been undermined by their adventuring. One of the illuminating things about Twitter is its almost unique power to illustrate that people who are geniuses in their own fields — Neil deGrasse Tyson, Joyce Carol Oates — are ordinary imbeciles like the rest of us when they venture very far beyond them. The politicization of science has been particularly destructive. Recall Stephen Schneider’s essay in Discover in which he argued that scientists have a moral duty to lie about climate change, because the truth is so complicated as to prevent the emergence of the political consensus he believes is necessary to address the issue: “We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. . . . Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” Economists, physicians, and social scientists of all descriptions have been seduced by the same line of thought. And of course the scientists and economists have been spectacularly wrong about any number of things that they believed — and assured the public — were absolutely certain. It does not take too much familiarity with Vox to detect that expert consensus is very often a veneer covering other motives.

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