PUT NOT YOUR FAITH IN EXPERTS.

We repeatedly ask, "What would we ever do without experts?" and we do so more in sorrow than in anger.  "Thus, the Fatal Conceit of the latter-day Platonists (the self-styled progressives) is in creating that cadre of Wise Experts who are going to protect the masses from their own foolishness."  We thus welcome "Another Reason Not to Trust the ‘Experts’"  Particularly because pronouncements from organizations claiming to represent Expertise have a lot of members who, in the manner of Junior Birdmen, sent their boxtops in.  "Five boxtops, Four bottle bottoms, Three wrappers, Two labels, And one thin dime!" Partridge in a pear tree optional.

One of the great lessons of the past decade is that when you read a variation of “experts say” in a headline, you ought to think twice and for yourself.

This week, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) voted on a resolution that accused Israel of committing genocide in its war against Hamas. Like moths to a flame, the mainstream press ran wild with the story of the organization’s declaration.

To be precise, the usual suspects within the mainstream press, you know, the organizations that are bent on baiting Our President into calling them fake news.

The Guardian quoted the president of the association, Melanie O’Brien, declaring that the resolution represented “a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide.” In another interview with ABC News Australia, O’Brien boasted that the resolution passed with nearly 90 percent support.

There might be people within that organization with solid academic accomplishments and diplomatic experience.  These days, though, it takes more than a thin dime to become a member.

Let’s start with the organization itself. According to O’Brien, the members of her organization “mainly consist of people who are academics, so scholarly experts, but our membership is also made up of people who come from different communities within the field of genocide prevention, education, and punishment.”

On Tuesday evening, Salo Aizenberg, a board member of Honest Reporting and contributor to NGO Monitor, tested that proposition. After exploring the IAGS website, he found that he could become a member of the organization with just a $30 contribution. “This organization that purports to be a leading organization of scholars is open to anyone who is interested,” he told The Free Press.

After Aizenberg posted about his new membership to X, others joined in on the fun. Newly minted genocide scholars now include Emperor Palpatine, the villain of the Star Wars franchise; Adolf Hitler of Gaza City; and our favorite, “Mo Cookie,” who turns out to be the Cookie Monster wearing a green scarf with the Hamas logo.

And even with all that, and no boxtops or bottlecaps required, the membership is around 500 with fewer than 200 signatories to the declaration.  The general lesson, though, applies to any other invocation of Experts.

Whatever one wants to call this, it’s not scholarship. But it’s also—at this point—to be expected. To read a headline with “[Insert Topic], Experts Say” today begs disbelief on the part of the reader, in part because of stories like this one. Activists are dressed up as scholars and subject matter experts, and their words are taken as gospel in news reports.

Newsies can go shopping for sympathetic "experts" who will provide impressive sounding explanations in support of whatever Narrative the newsie in question seeks to support.  It all makes for more work for people who seek an approximation of the truth, because deconstruction of coherent beliefs simply compounds the incoherence.