Friday, March 09, 2007

Experts Usually Aren't

Experts usually aren't. They're just good salesmen in their field.

My brother has spent his entire career in the auto industry, mostly working in shops that offer maintenance and tire sales. His area of specialization is in tires. Much of his time has been spent working for Goodyear franchises. Not surprisingly, he maintained that Goodyear tires are the best, and always offered technical evidence as to why. Even when he worked for independent shops that sold many brands of tires, he still believed in Goodyear. Well, guess what happened when one time he went to work for Firestone? Yeah. But in any case, I've always had good tires on my car.

Nothing against my brother, of course, but my whole point is that "experts" don't always agree. In fact they quite often don't agree. They are even rarely expert enough to prove that their way is the only way to view things, even though they claim so. An expert doesn't even agree with himself consistently on the same subject as time goes by, such as my brother who worked for Goodyear, then Firestone, then Goodyear again. Experts who spend their entire lives studying certain areas of life vehemently disagree on almost every topic there is. Take for example the arguments of public education versus home schooling. Or Catholic and Protestant theologians. Or baseball experts that can't agree on who the best pitcher was in the 60's.

Or global warming.

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