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Thursday, March 22, 2007

Experts (in inverted commas)

I haven't written expert without the commas for some time now. I'll explain why:

We join the tale about ten years into it. Joe public (hereafter known as 'dopey Joe') is happily eating/drinking away at a given substance. Then suddenly, out of the blue, one of the aforementioned 'experts' claims in the public forum that the particular food isn't good for you. It gives you cancer/makes you go blind or any other of a million reasons (all of which are complete nonsense - see later).

So dopey joe, as is his/her wont, blindly follows the instruction and ceases forthwith to consume the offending material, safe in the knowledge that he/she dodged the proverbial bullet, and carries on with their lives in blissful ignorance.

Fast forward a number of years (it varies - but usually between 3-5) and some other 'expert' from the same field normally, and in fact often the exact 'expert' who made the original claim, comes out with - "wait a minute, hang on, we made a mistake - it's not bad for you after all. It doesn't give you cancer blah blah. Quite the contrary he goes on to claim, if you DON'T consume this particular substance, you'll be missing out on some important vitamin/nutrient".

And like so much sheep, dopey joe swallows this new contrary information and resumes eating/drinking the once offending consumable. This time breathing a sigh of relief and wondering if they've missed out on something healthy.

Okay - got it so far? Good, so, fast forward another number of years and yet another 'expert' makes himself heard.
"No wait - hang on", he says, "it turns out that we'd got it right first time and the second claim was actually wrong. Stop eating/drinking it again because it IS bad for you - we mean it this time. It definitely gives you cancer/liver damage/heart problems etc."

And on and on it goes. Give it enough time and it'll swing back the OTHER way once again.

Tch! Experts indeed. I swear they just sit in rooms bored, and when it gets too much for them they make these riduculous claims that dopey joe swallows hook, line and sinker.