The Problem With “Experts”

By Wings of Liberty

The Protestant Reformation hinged on the question of who had the authority to declare objective truth. [1] Was the Bible the truth, or was the Pope’s word the truth? Since the Pope contradicted the Bible, who were people to believe? Did each person have the right to determine the answer for themselves?

This is an ancient issue. Since there was war (In Greek, polemos – the root of the word polemics and politics) in heaven (Revelation 12:7), and again at the temptation of our first parents (Genesis 3), the all-important questions have been – what is the truth? And, who can we trust?

Satan styled himself as an authority in both the initial conflict with the angels in heaven and in the temptation of Eve. His proximity to God as the covering cherub (Ezekiel 28:16) was used to artfully insinuate to the angels that he knew God and His law better than they did. [2] To Eve, he presented himself as an authority on the fruit of the tree, since the serpent was physically in the tree, and had presumably already tasted its fruit and acquired the power of speech thereby. In both scenarios, Satan suggested that the beings he sought to influence ought to defer to his positions because he had more experience and understanding than they did.

Let us turn now to the experts.

In the professional world, the concept of expertise rests on the idea that certain people have developed specialized experience and knowledge in a given field such that they are qualified to give an extra-knowledgeable and therefore authoritative opinion on a given subject. In other words, experts supposedly have more knowledge than the rest of us, and we ought simply to defer to their views. The Cambridge Dictionary defines the word “expert” as “a person with a high level of knowledge or skill relating to a particular subject or activity.” [3]

Today, such “experts” are everywhere. We are bombarded with authoritative opinions to “assist” us in coming to conclusions. There are financial experts, construction experts, diet experts, sleep experts, and travel experts. There are experts on language. We have experts on facts, called “fact checkers”. These experts claim to evaluate information and simply inform us of the truth. There is no need to check for ourselves.

We have experts in geology, theology and evolution, people who claim to harmonize all three. Some, along with the Pope, say that there is harmony between the book of Genesis and Darwin’s theory of evolution. [4] They fact-checked evolution – and say, “trust the science”. But this so-called science contradicts the Bible. It contradicts the fossil record. [5] It contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. [6] Isn’t that a problem?

For many of us, our default is to trust the experts. We have become accustomed to having them tell us what to think and what to do. This is the path of least resistance for many even when it contradicts the Word of God.

But we are engaged in a cosmic controversy on life and death questions about good and evil and salvation. There is a great controversy raging between God and Satan, between truth and error. In a world of lies, Jesus calls to the world and says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: No man cometh unto the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). According to Christ, there’s One way. One truth.

The world badly needs to be reminded to question the experts. Implicit in the concept of the Reformation is the notion that the experts were incorrect, and that theology needed to be reformed. But there never would have been a Reformation if people like Wycliffe, Huss, Jerome and Martin Luther had been satisfied to simply trust the authorities of the day. They read the Bible for themselves and weighed truth against error. Then they acted accordingly.

From the beginning, the only way to “fact check” the serpent has been with the Word of God. “To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because they have no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). Isn’t that the very definition of Protestantism? To test everything by the Word of God?

So what is the track record of many of these experts?

Medical experts have informed the public for decades that smoking is safe. The leading throat and lung doctors in the United States betrayed their medical oaths and lined up for decades to take money from Big Tobacco. [7]

Medical experts claim healthy teenage girls who are confused about their gender should cut their breasts off because it will “help” their condition. Medical experts claim that some men have a uterus and can “chest feed”. [8]

Cambridge Dictionary has decided to redefine the word “woman”, [9] now including the following definition: “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth”.

Experts have time and time again given opinions that twist the truth, threaten the public, or both. Often, they are compromised and corrupt, selling their so-called expertise to the highest bidder.

Hosts of doctors have given their “expert” opinion that a new drug is safe, only to have it kill and/or injure tens of thousands of people. Rofecoxib (Vioxx) was connected to nearly 28,000 heart attacks in the US between 1999 and 2003. The experts at Merck (Vioxx’s manufacturer) and the FDA claimed it was safe.

Isotretinoin (Accutane) was an acne medication in use between 1998 and 2009 that was recalled due to its increased risk of birth defects, miscarriage, and premature deaths among pregnant women who used it, as well as suicidal ideation and inflammatory bowel disease. Its use has resulted in multiple lawsuits.

Experts said thalidomide was safe. It was prescribed to millions to treat colds and flus and was widely used in the late 1950s and early 1960s for the treatment of nausea in pregnant women. In the 1960s, however, it was shown that thalidomide use resulted in severe birth defects. [10] Thousands of children were born with extreme deformations. Because of experts.

A 2014 study found that prescription medication is the third leading cause of death in the United States, with half of those who die using the drug that killed them as directed. [11] Every approved pharmaceutical drug had a battalion of experts who were paid to say, “It’s safe.”

Five billion people around the world were coerced into getting Covid “vaccines” produced by companies with a well-documented history of pharmaceutical fraud. Nevertheless, the governments of the western world granted those companies legal immunity from civil suits for their new products. Scores of “experts” proclaimed they were safe, including ex-presidents. [12] The Pope threw his influence into convincing the world the shots were safe: “trust the science”. [13]

In an incredible statement, Dr. Kadlec, former assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the US Department of Health and Anthony Fauci’s superior, in his first ever media interview, linked COVID-19 not only to gain of function research funded by the NIH, but vaccine research: “We think vaccine research resulted in the pandemic – that vaccine research was the proximate cause.” [14] According to Dr. Kadlec, Dr. Fauci’s attitude was that gain of function research ought not to be restricted because scientists know best. [15] The attitude of many so-called experts is, “Who are you to question me?” [16]

And now, people are mysteriously dying. [17] There has been an “unexplained” 34% uptake in deaths in people in the prime of their lives in the United States in the last quarter alone. [18] A similar phenomenon is occurring around the western world.

It would be unfair to the papal power to fail to mention the supposed experts in our own denomination. The claim has been recently made that the Adventist health message is based in part on peer-reviewed science, [19] as though the consensus of worldly experts must be used to ratify or augment the instructions of the Living God. What happens when peer-reviewed science, so-called, contradicts the Bible or the Spirit of Prophecy in other areas, as it so often does? Shall peer-reviewed science form part of our beliefs about the age of the earth or the origins of humanity? Or whether God created males and females, and not 20,000 different genders?

Shall we take into consideration the expertise of those theologians (literally, specialists in theology) who say that the fourth commandment has been changed or abrogated?

The very concept of peer review is ratification through consensus. But is the majority opinion now the test for Christians? Since when has the majority been right? Jesus said, “Broad is the way that leads to the destruction and many there be that go in there at.” [20]

The North American Division and its expert panel insinuated that people would be selfish not to take the Covid vaccine. [21] Health Director Peter Landless claimed that the Adventist health message is in part based on peer-reviewed science, seeming to imply that since peer-reviewed science claimed the Covid vaccines were safe, it was his expert view that one could safely defer to their opinions. [22] Is this sound reasoning on any subject, let alone the taking of new drug therapeutics made mostly by companies with a history of consumer fraud?

Arguments of this nature in our church evidence a dangerous trend toward deference to supposed authority and away from individual conscience and discernment.

The Bible has examples of so-called experts, as well. Nebuchadnezzar had experts in Babylon. Pharaoh had experts in Egypt. The Jews at the time of Christ had experts in theology. [23] They were all from the credentialed class. They had all the diplomas and degrees. They occupied positions of influence. But when the crisis came, the charade of the experts became obvious.

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Sources

[1] Many think that the Reformation revolved around the issue of Justification by Faith. This issue, along with the other 95 protests of Martin Luther, however, each were underpinned by one issue: the question of truth and the right to declare it. Was the Bible truth or was the word of the Pope truth? Yes, the Reformers protested indulgences, purgatory, the confession of sins to human priests (instead of directly to our great High Priest, Jesus Christ), the claim of transubstantiation in the mass, the immaculate conception of Mary, etc. These doctrines were tested against humanity’s only inerrant compass, the Word of God, and found wanting.

[2] “The mighty revolter now declared that the angels who had united with him had gone too far to return; that he was acquainted with the divine law, and knew that God would not forgive. He declared that all who should submit to the authority of Heaven would be stripped of their honor, degraded from their position. For himself, he was determined never again to acknowledge the authority of Christ. The only course remaining for him and his followers, he said, was to assert their liberty, and gain by force the rights which had not been willingly accorded them…. And his [Lucifer’s] high position, so closely connected with the divine government, gave greater force to his representations.” Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 40-41.

[3] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/expert

[4] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/pope-would-you-accept-evolution-and-big-bang-180953166/; https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-10-25-mn-57403-story.html

[5] https://www.icr.org/home/resources/resources_tracts_scientificcaseagainstevolution/;

[6] https://www.icr.org/article/evolution-thermodynamics-entropy/

[7] https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2012/01/big-tobacco-led-throat-doctors-to-blow-smoke.html

[8] https://nypost.com/2023/07/05/cdc-advises-trans-people-chestfeeding-kids-accused-of-neglecting-health-risks/

[9] https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/living/story/cambridge-dictionary-expands-definition-woman-includetransgender-women-95305550

[10] https://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/news/sixty-years-on-the-history-of-the-thalidomide-tragedy;

[11] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25355584/

[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li-oxKhvZy0

[13] https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2021/09/pope-says-to-trust-science-calls-vaccines-a-sign-of-hope

[14] https://archive.ph/7SJ2i

[15] Ibid.

[16] https://rumble.com/vsl8xo-sen.-paul-says-faucis-i-am-the-science-is-an-expression-of-extreme-arroganc.html

[17] https://rumble.com/v1rl1kk-until-proven-otherwise-featuring-cardiologists-dr.-peter-mccullough-dr.-ase.html; https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/association-between-vaccines-and; https://thepostmillennial.com/we-werelied-to-by-everyone-ben-shapiro-walks-back-support-for-covid-vaccine?utm_campaign=64494; https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=2jTgDj7uiX8&feature=youtu.be; https://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/2022/10/20220512-guidance-mrna-covid19-vaccine.pr.html%20;%20 https:/www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/texas-rejects-new-cdc-recommendation-to-mandate-the-covid-shot-toschool-children_4817977.html; https://www.ehealthme.com/vs/pfizer-biontech-covid-vaccine/arrhythmias/; https://www.theepochtimes.com/new-study-finds-heart-inflammation-after-covid-19-vaccination-higher-withmoderna-than-pfizer_4861735.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022- 11-16&src_cmp=mb-2022-11- 16&utm_medium=email&est=sdqLBaL0B2yskFoI5HVOzTGwkaOHQ%2BisonWJX8h7iJ5dOlGSNUIPtt%2BnVq6ZVRqS https://twitter.com/HighWireTalk/status/1592896188801744896?t=EIY6yW0MJ64Ghecmg2KpDQ&s=35 https://dreddymd.com/2022/07/08/birth-rates-plummet-in-hungary-due-to-mass-covid-vaccinations/ https://dreddymd.com/2022/07/08/taiwan-witnesses-catastrophic-23percent-drop-birth-rate-in-may-2022/ https://t.me/PeterMcCullough/2783 ; https://www.theblaze.com/news/pfizer-moderna-trials-vaccine https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/japan-finds-stainless-steel-particles-suspendeddoses-moderna-vaccine-2021-09-01/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9160865/California-scientist-calls-pause-using-batch-Modernavaccines-allergic-reactions.html https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/pfizer-moderna-covid-vaccine-trials-myocarditis/ https://rumble.com/v1rcdjm-until-proven-otherwise-two-of-the-top-cardiologists-in-theworld.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email ; https://thecountersignal.com/pfizer-admits-covidvaccine-was-never-tested-for-transmission/; https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/leading-britishcardiologist-and?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email;

[18] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/more-young-americans-are-dying-and-it-s-not-covid-why-aren-twe-searching-for-answers/ar-AA1f86xx?cvid=96c5fca883184378fd4fb3a38a9d767b&ocid=winp2fptaskbar&ei=6

[19] https://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2023/4/2/is-peer-reviewed-scientific-literature-a-basis-for-the-sda-healthmessage

[20] Matthew 7:13

[21] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COwVIkaEkO8 – starting at minute 20:45.

[22] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COwVIkaEkO8 – starting at minute 15:33.

[23] John 7:48 – “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him?”