Experts

Some say it is wise to be suspicious of experts and there is evidence to support this suspicion. In 1800 Thomas Malthus developed a theory that population growth would outstrip the food supply and lead to starvation. He was unaware of the upcoming industrial revolution and food supplies outpaced population growth. In 1968 Paul Ehrlich wrote a book saying that the population would grow faster than the food supply and people would starve. Both of these experts were widely believed and laws were changed based on their theories. Today the world is facing a population decline that threatens the vary existence of countries like China and Japan. In today’s world these experts are not only subjected to the risk of predicting the future but they must contend with political ideas being fostered off as science. Case in point. The promotion of wind and solar as a way to promote social change. Politics has a tendency to distort science. The holding up and in some cases the dismantling of nuclear power, by groups claiming to be science based, has been one of the main causes of global warming. These groups are still active today. Germany has in the past 30 years closed all of its 17 nuke power plants and today they are restarting coal plants.