Celebrity Science Experts: Myth, Fact and Hyperbole

By Rich Kozlovich 

As the years have gone by we're seeing more and more "celebrities" expound on just about everything under the sun.  Global warming, genetically modified foods and a host of other "science" related subjects.  But one thing is becoming clear.  Fewer and fewer people care what they think.  Also, they've been "threatening" to leave America over and over again every time the nation fails to accede to their demands.

Their failure to do so has been a major disappointment to many a conservative, but there's always hope. 

Now all this blusterous emoting and irrational behavior out of Hollywood over Trump and now Twitter makes them look like a bunch of spoiled brats further eroding their credibility, and intelligence. 

So, let's try and get this right. 

• These are people who excel at pretending they're someone else, mostly people who never existed.
• Mouthing words written by someone else they memorized.
• Told how to say those words by another person in order to maximize the emotional impact on an audience.
• All the while being professionally filmed by a bunch of others to enhance that image.
  

Depending on the role they're playing, all that makes them look smarter, faster, tougher,  and depending on the theme they're promoting of this fictional person's character, they are made to look more intelligent, more empathetic, more compassionate, more likable or more sympathetic than ordinary mortals.  The problem is they begin to believe it, so they then think they can pretend to be experts on science, social constructs, politics, international relation, and culture. 

But that's all just an illusion. That's why they call it acting.   Let's get this right.  Being a celebrity is their only qualification for being unendingly asked for their opinions on things in which they're totally unqualified to speak! 

It's not just being an actor, singer or comedian, it's being a celebrity!   Why you don't see actors, singers or comedians no one ever heard of?   The answer is simple.  No one ever heard of them.

How many actual scientists who testify before Congress does anyone know or in most cases ever heard of them?  Unless you're involved in their fields, or involved in writing about them, the public is generally clueless as to who they are.  But remember, they're testifying because they really are experts.  They're not celebrities playing the role and pretending to be experts. 

Although in recent years we're finding there are many of what I'm calling "expert/actors" like "The Science Guy,  Bill Nye, and Doctor Oz, both of whom have been ripped by scientists for a lot of their views.   When these "expert/actors" say things that many view as nonsense, they have to face the music within the scientific community.  But, who do these celebrities have to answer to?  No one!

When they're called before some Congressional panel to testify about issues in which they're completely unqualified to speak, it's a stage play.  Unless they're there to sit down, shut their mouths, listen and learn, they're totally unqualified to be there.  But that's not what "celebrities" do and that's not why corrupt politicians invite celebrities there in the first place.

Once these people reach a certain level of celebrity they live in a world of "yes"! Everything they say and do is "news", everything they think is "important", every utterance is splashed over the media as if what they say really means something - or anything for that matter - and many in the public eat it up. 

It's all a big show, a stage play with image over form.  But when you turn out the lights and exit the stage what do you get?  You get someone who was parking cars, pumping gas and waiting on tables, who became a "star", and now so many in society hunger for their insights on life, to which most of whom have been abject failures.   What a sorry state we're in.