Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - What Is an Expert? Aired: 2025-04-14 Duration: 05:54 === What Makes an Expert? (01:49) === [00:00:00] So, the answer is, what is an expert? [00:00:03] And that's a fascinating question to me. [00:00:05] A really deeply fascinating question. [00:00:08] What is an expert? [00:00:10] Now, in the past, I would say, as a whole, in general, that expertise used to be credentialism. [00:00:21] You went to Yale, you went to Harvard, you went to Stanford, you went to Oxford, you went to Cambridge, you come out and you've got the four-point hat and you've got the cloak. [00:00:30] Of all of that, and you are an expert. [00:00:34] But tell me if you think this is true. [00:00:41] I think, for the most part, for a lot of people, not for everyone, but for a lot of people, for the most part, credentialism is kind of dead. [00:00:52] Do you agree? [00:00:53] Do you disagree? [00:00:55] Credentialism. Well, this person has a... [00:00:57] PhD, this person is a professor, and therefore this person is correct. [00:01:03] I mean, not for everyone, but I certainly think in this group, certainly for me, I'll just be honest, I view credentialism as a negative now. [00:01:11] To me, it's not just dead, it's like anti-life. [00:01:15] Now, Douglas Murray has an undergraduate degree in English and speaks about all kinds of topics. [00:01:20] In fact, I saw a clip of him not too long ago talking about AI. [00:01:25] I'm not sure how having an undergraduate degree in English qualifies you to talk deeply about AI, but... [00:01:33] So, what is an expert? [00:01:37] I think, to me, an expert is someone who's read deeply in a topic, has thought deeply about a topic, and has absorbed more than one perspective. [00:01:43] Right? I mean, I did a whole presentation, it was available to an NFT a while ago, called The Rise of Nazism. === Experts Got It Wrong (04:04) === [00:01:49] And I read an ungodly amount of fairly horrible material at times, and went... [00:01:55] With a variety of sort of understandings and explanations. [00:02:00] And... Oh, congratulations on getting your PhD, my lady. [00:02:05] So I just did a little bit on... [00:02:08] Just a couple of notes here about big things that experts got wrong. [00:02:12] COVID, lockdowns, the vaccine. [00:02:14] If you get it, you can't get COVID. [00:02:17] And a lot of people who got it got COVID even more. [00:02:20] If you get it, you can't transmit it. [00:02:21] Turns out it was never tested for transmission. [00:02:23] Big things experts got wrong. [00:02:25] Global warming, at least in terms of the catastrophes that were predicted in the 80s, totally wrong. [00:02:30] And if you look at all the models versus the actual temperatures, there's really not much in common. [00:02:34] The melting pot, that you can just get a wide variety of cultures and they're going to kind of blend into one goo. [00:02:39] That was foundational to a lot of policies. [00:02:42] Doesn't really seem to be happening. [00:02:44] The IQ research that I was revealing to the world some years ago, the sort of chemical imbalance theory of Mental unease, depression, anxiety, and so on, that you have a chemical imbalance and you take these pills to restore that chemical imbalance. [00:03:00] That appears to be pretty false. [00:03:02] There's a replication crisis in science as a whole, and in particular in psychology. [00:03:07] Experts have seen the rise in autism, and experts are not moving heaven and earth to find a source of autism, although RFK Jr. is now talking about having that data out by September, October, which is going to be interesting. [00:03:20] Although it's fair to say that the diagnosis of autism Has gone up with government money for autism. [00:03:25] Media bias, right? [00:03:26] So these, in the media, mainstream Western media, these are experts who claim to be unbiased. [00:03:32] They're reporters, they're well-trained, they claim to be unbiased. [00:03:34] And I think fairly clearly, it's pretty ridiculously biased, right? [00:03:38] Was it NPR? [00:03:39] I'm sure that they would say that they're objective. [00:03:41] And NPR has, like, no non-democrats in any positions of power. [00:03:47] Feminism is supposed to be about female equality. [00:03:50] And has morphed into female supremacy in many ways. [00:03:53] Almost 60% of university attendees are women now, and there isn't like, oh, we've got to find a way to bring more men back. [00:04:00] It's just going more and more women. [00:04:02] Immigration, certainly what the experts want and what the general population want is quite divergent. [00:04:09] The welfare state solving the problems of poverty has not happened. [00:04:12] And of course, you know, one of the things that I talked about many years ago. [00:04:17] Whereas people in the West were told, oh, there's too many people. [00:04:20] You shouldn't have kids. [00:04:21] And then it's like, oh, we don't have enough people. [00:04:23] We need lots of immigration. [00:04:25] And there's this intransigence to all of this expertise, right? [00:04:28] The intransigence is they just don't admit fault. [00:04:31] You know, one of the things that is really essential for me in terms of credibility as a whole is I need people to admit fault and take responsibility for getting things wrong. [00:04:45] Right? I mean, as you know, I've got a whole series of shows called I Was Wrong About. [00:04:50] Now, I've made my apologies. [00:04:52] Because if you want to be an expert, you have to be able to admit fault. [00:04:55] Otherwise, you're just an ideologue, right? [00:05:00] So, I think people are quite frustrated about all of this stuff. [00:05:10] Yeah, you guys are... [00:05:11] Ability to process source data is my big criteria if you're an expert. [00:05:15] Either source data or in the philosophical realm, being able to make arguments from first principles. [00:05:19] If somebody says the same, oh, and by the way, freedomain.com slash donate, if you could help out the show. [00:05:24] I know I've been a little bit lower energy this month, but it was just a health issue. [00:05:28] And if you could help me out, I'd really appreciate it. [00:05:30] freedomain.com slash donate. [00:05:31] We're quite low compared to where we were last month, and I really would appreciate your support. [00:05:37] If somebody says same, if I hear on the news experts say, I assume they're just trying to push a narrative. [00:05:42] Someone says, He says, Dave Murray, I think you mean Douglas Murray, also criticized poor white Americans for being hopeful that Trump would help them. [00:05:49] As if they had any choices, yeah. [00:05:51] Somebody says, trust me, bro, versus my university trusts me, bro.