Posted on 07/25/2018 7:05:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted that if Donald Trump were elected, there would be a protracted recession within 18 months. Heeding its experts, a month before the election, The Washington Post ran an editorial with the headline "A President Trump Could Destroy The World Economy." Steve Rattner, a Democratic financier and former head of the National Economic Council, warned, "If the unlikely event happens and Trump wins, you will see a market crash of historic proportions." When Trump's electoral victory became apparent, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned that the world was "very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight." By the way, Krugman has been so wrong in so many of his economic predictions, but that doesn't stop him from making more shameless predictions.
People whom we've trusted as experts have often been wrong beyond imagination, and it's nothing new. Irving Fisher, a distinguished Yale University economics professor in 1929, predicted, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." Three days later, the stock market crashed. In 1945, regarding money spent on the Manhattan Project, Adm. William Leahy told President Harry S. Truman, "That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The (atomic) bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." CARTOONS | Chip Bok View Cartoon
In 1903, the president of the Michigan Savings Bank, advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in Ford Motor Co., said, "The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty -- a fad." Confidence in the staying power of the horse was displayed by a 1916 comment of the aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Douglas Haig at a tank demonstration: "The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous."
Albert Einstein predicted: "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." In 1899, Charles H. Duell, the U.S. commissioner of patents, said, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." Listening to its experts in 1936, The New York Times predicted, "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere."
To prove that it's not just academics, professionals and businesspeople who make harebrained predictions, Hall of Fame baseball player Tris Speaker's 1919 advice about Babe Ruth was, "Taking the best left-handed pitcher in baseball and converting him into a right fielder is one of the dumbest things I ever heard." For those of us not familiar with baseball, Babe Ruth was one of the greatest outfielders who ever played the game.
The world's greatest geniuses are by no means exempt from out-and-out nonsense. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was probably the greatest scientist of all time. He laid the foundation for classical mechanics; his genius transformed our understanding of physics, mathematics and astronomy. What's not widely known is that Newton spent most of his waking hours on alchemy. Some of his crackpot experiments included trying to turn lead into gold. He wrote volumes on alchemy, but after his death, Britain's Royal Society deemed that they were "not fit to be printed."
Then there's mathematical physicist and engineer Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), whose major contribution was in thermodynamics. Kelvin is widely recognized for determining the correct value of absolute zero, approximately minus 273.15 degrees Celsius or minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. In honor of his achievement, extremely high and extremely low temperatures are expressed in units called kelvins. To prove that one can be a genius in one area and an idiot in another, Kelvin challenged geologists by saying that Earth is between 20 million and 100 million years old. Kelvin predicted, "X-rays will prove to be a hoax." And he told us, "I can state flatly that heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
The point of all this is to say that we can listen to experts but take what they predict with a grain or two of salt.
A Magic Eight Ball is more accurate...................
Experts only in their own mind.
“heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
Look up. Birds are heavier-than-air flying machines. Arrogance makes you stupid.
“Experts only in their own mind.”
So-called experts are in a perpetual, classic circle-jerk with one another, but they are consistent - consistently wrong.
I suppose to avoid controversy... the author has left out the biggest elephant in the room, global warming predictions vs reality over the last 40 or so years. Al Gore claimed in 2008 that the Arctic would be ice free within 5 years. He made numerous other claims in his 2006 movie, none of which have come true. When confronted Gore said it is because his movie caused “green house gas” emissions to decline. Even this his is another lie, fossil fuel use worldwide has continued to increase with no measurable impact on the climate.
Thanks for posting.
LEAN processing.
Global Warming.
Stock markets.
Take away that people are by in large, stupid.
And we are all people.
The experts generally have a political agenda or mantra that is enabled by the biased media....a perfect storm of liars, inaccuracies, and incompetence....sort of like hellary et al.....
An expert is someone who has carefully collected all the data he can to back up his opinion
“Who wants to hear actors talk?”
He didn’t even mention Al Gore!
Experts
Trump can never win the polls show
The Edsel will be a big hit
The Titanic is unsinkable
Bookmark
experts tell us we can’t trust anyone-
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946
“Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within ten years.”
Alex Lewyt, president of Lewyt vacuum company, 1955
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
“Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet’s continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”
Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995
...and solipsism makes you arrogant.
The topic of this thread appears every few years, and this one is among the best and most extensive that I recall seeing. I've saved it electronically, but "progress" always conspires to make "permanent" records unusable without exception. But I digress.
By coincidence, just this morning as happens every year, a flock of several hundred Canada Geese flew directly over my home.
I am not a bird watcher, I have never owned a bird. But I am aware that, aside from cockroaches, birds are among the most common, and oldest biological examples in earths long history.
I do observe birds at every opportunity because, for me, they are among the most fascinating and persuasive examples of proof of God's existence.
I am also a lifelong aficionado of air travel, and know more than the average Joe about aerodynamics and aviation generally.
Perhaps all birds have the ability, but due to their long necks, that ability is most easily seen in geese. When flying their bodies must move slightly up and down just by flapping their wings, buy their heads remain stationary their entire flight. The long necks compensate instinctively, for body motion. Living biological gyroscopes.
I will assume that most Freepers are familiar with the concept and operation of gyroscopes and the evolution of inertial navigation. Science and technology have allowed inertial navigation to achieve exquisite accuracies. And so, evidently, have geese.
“The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous.”
Speaking of expert opinion, around the turn of the twentieth century, the head of the US Patent Office suggested abolishing the agency because everything that could be invented had been invented.
I’ll close with the expert witness of Auguste Comte, French philosopher and founder of sociology, who, in 1835, boldly declared, “It is impossible for any scientist to ever know what the stars are made of.” It was just a few years after his death that astronomers employed prisms to break down starlight into emissions of known elements.
But, as Red Buttons might have said, “Madilyn O’Hare never got a dinner.”
When movies arrived, the press needed some means to discriminate between Broadway actors and film actors.
Time magazine, which debuted around that time, called Hollywood’s bunch “cinemactors.” It didn’t, you notice, catch on.
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