The Expert Carousel
Every major story now comes with a familiar cast.
There is the legal expert. The medical expert. The national security expert. The parenting expert. The social media expert. The cultural expert. Sometimes the same person rotates through all of them.
They appear on cable news, podcasts, panels, and timelines. They speak with certainty. They offer context. They explain what we are supposed to understand.
Then the story changes.
And the experts change with it.
When Certainty Keeps Changing
What strikes me is not that experts exist. Expertise is real and valuable. Some people truly do know more than the rest of us about specific subjects. That is not the issue.
The issue is how the word “expert” is now used.
It has become less about knowledge and more about authority. Less about understanding and more about permission.
An expert is no longer someone who helps you think. They are someone who tells you what to think.
And they rotate.
When Expertise Becomes Permission
One week, a person is absolutely certain. The next week, they are absolutely certain of the opposite. The explanation for the change is rarely examined. We simply move on, guided by a new set of confident voices who sound just as sure as the last ones did.
What we almost never hear is, “We were wrong.”
We hear, “The science evolved.”
lass=”yoast-text-mark” />>We hear, “The data changed.”
>We hear, “We now understand more.”
Sometimes that is true. Sometimes it is not.
What I notice is how little accountability is attached to expert certainty. Predictions fail. Claims collapse. Models miss. Guidance changes. And yet, the same people often reappear, just as confident as before, explaining the next thing.
The carousel keeps turning.
Certainty Without Accountability
I think this has quietly changed how people relate to information. We are no longer encouraged to understand. We are encouraged to defer.
If you question an expert, you are told you are unqualified. If you notice contradictions, you are told you lack nuance. If you point out past mistakes, you are accused of undermining trust.
But trust is not something that can be commanded.
It has to be earned.
And it is usually earned through humility, transparency, and a willingness to admit error. Those qualities are not rewarded in our current media environment. Certainty is.
The louder, the better.
How Trust Gets Replaced
There is also something strange about how broad the word “expert” has become. Someone can be highly knowledgeable in one narrow field and suddenly be treated as an authority on culture, politics, psychology, and morality.
That is not expertise. That is celebrity.
And we are confusing the two.
When Credentials Replace Thinking
This creates a strange dynamic. Instead of learning how to evaluate information, people learn how to follow credentials. Instead of thinking, they wait for permission. Instead of asking questions, they look for endorsements.
That might feel efficient. It is not.
It makes people passive.
It also makes it harder to notice when something does not add up, because you are no longer supposed to evaluate claims. You are supposed to accept them.
I do not think this is intentional. I think it is structural. Cable news needs talking heads. Social media needs authority figures. Algorithms reward confidence, not caution.
So we get a steady parade of people who sound very sure of themselves.
And a public that feels increasingly unsure.
This Isn’t a Conspiracy
What worries me is not that experts exist. It is that the category itself has become so vague and so powerful that it now functions more like a shield than a guide.
When someone says, “Experts agree,” the conversation usually ends.
But agreement is not the same thing as truth.
And consensus is not the same thing as understanding.
I am not interested in a world where people stop listening to those who know more than they do. I am interested in a world where knowing more comes with responsibility, not just authority.
Right now, we have plenty of authority.
What we seem to be missing is accountability.
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