The pandemic did a lot of damage and while a lot of focus is put on the economy and the education system, one thing that probably took just as much damage was the people’s trust in the “experts.”
For generations, it was drilled into us that people who go through the higher education system and come out the other side with master’s degrees and doctorates were to be trusted at their word when it came to their fields. To be sure, there was a time when that trust was well deserved. Doctors took their oaths seriously and scientists were objective, at least for the most part.
But the pandemic proved to us that someone’s reputation as an expert can be bought, and if not bought, then pushed into denying the realities of their field through social influence. While the former is far more common, it’s easier to accomplish the latter than you think.
Take, for instance, this interaction between famed swimmer Riley Gains and the anthropology department’s “senior lecturer” at the University of Pittsburgh.
Gains is known for being one of the swimmers who spoke out against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and men competing in women’s sports.
In a video that has now gone viral, Gains can be seen questioning self-proclaimed “expert in the room” professor Gabby Yearwood if an archeologist could tell the difference between a male and female skeleton that had been unearthed. Yearwood answered “no,” causing the room to erupt in laughter.
When @Riley_Gaines_ asked University of Pittsburgh professor Gabby Yearwood if an archeologist could differentiate between two sets of bones as male and female, Professor Yearwood. who calls himself the “expert in the room,” answers “no” to which the entire audience laughed. pic.twitter.com/Ecxs1NMDTr
— Independent Women's Forum (@IWF) March 30, 2023
The professor was shocked at the response to the students laughing at him, throwing his credentials around.
“Have any of you been to anthropological sites? Have any of you studied biological anthropology? I’m just saying, I’ve got over 150 years of data, I’m just curious as to why I’m being laughed at,” he said.
“I have a PhD!” he added.
The truth is that scientists absolutely can identify the difference between men’s and women’s bones and have been doing so for a very long time. It’s pretty established science at this point. As the Independent Women’s Forum responded to the professor in a tweet, one of the biggest differences between the skeletal structures of the sexes can be found in the pelvic bones where women differ pretty largely from men.
When the self-proclaimed “expert in the room” is offended that his assertion that males & females don’t have distinct skeletal differences is laughable, one might wonder what students studying anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh are being taught by their professors? pic.twitter.com/5NtFLn4P9p
— Independent Women's Forum (@IWF) March 30, 2023
While readers in the medical profession can comment below about other differences, the point to make here is that Yearwood likely knows the difference between male and female skeletons if his claim about his background in anthropology is true. His knowledge about the differences in male and female skeletons is no match for his obvious political idealism—and he’s more than ready to deny reality to embrace the narratives his politics force him to believe.
Between the “experts” in the pandemic giving us the information we knew to be overblown if not false, and “scientists” now completely denying the existence of scientific facts to embrace modernity, trust in the “educated” is at an all-time low and the people can’t be blamed for that.
We currently live in a world where, like Yearwood, the degrees of higher education are now used as a tool to win the trust of people they can then take advantage of. The bona fides that once came with a master’s degree or a Ph.D. now looks a bit shady.
While I’m not encouraging you to stop seeing your doctor and never trust him or her again, I do think that it would be much better for society if we began taking these people’s claims with a grain of salt. At the end of the day, they’re human. They can be bought or fooled. A degree from a college doesn’t guarantee common sense. In fact, the more prestigious the degree, the more likely it is that the degree is tainted with some sort of socio-political belief.
The pandemic taught us a valuable lesson that we should take forward. “Experts” are very capable of, and willing to, lie to your face for their benefit. When the facts all point to an expert being wrong, trust your gut.
I’ll leave you with this video from YouTuber Razorfist, which sums up the issue of trusting the experts implicitly and its consequences.
