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He has a kindly face and lots of country-boy charm, but when Psychiatrist James Grigson, 48, shows up in a Texas courtroom, it is usually the kiss of death. The prosecution brings Grigson in for a sentencing hearing and asks him about the guilty man’s inclination to commit violent crimes in the future. In each of more than 70 such proceedings since 1967, Grigson has testified that the defendant was a ‘sociopath’ who was dangerous to society, and every time, with a single exception, the jury has unanimously voted for the ultimate penalty: in Texas, death by injection. Time online article 1st June 1981, ‘Law: They Call Him Doctor Death’
Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. Professor Richard Feynman
In practice, the ‘expert’ is the loyal and useful servant of those who hold the reins of power. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you. Christopher Hitchens
An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a narrow field. Niels Bohr
His [Mark Hofmann] great desire in life was to fool the experts. Robert Stott, prosecutor
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about experts – they’re experts on fuck all. Revolver 2005 starring Jason Statham & Ray Liotta & Andre Benjamin & Vincent Pastore & Mark Strong & Terrence Maynard & Francesca Annis et al, director Guy Ritchie
Believe one who has proved it. Believe an expert. Virgil, Aeneid
Don’t be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce haemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world. Colin Powell
No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense. Lord Salisbury, letter 15th June 1877
An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and who manages to avoid them. Werner Heisenberg, Der Teil und das Ganze
Experts agree that the best type of computer for your individual needs is one that comes on the market two days after you actually purchase some other computer. Dave Barry
There are as many opinions as there are experts. Franklin D Roosevelt
There was never a century nor a country that was short of experts who knew the Deity’s mind and were willing to reveal it. Mark Twain
And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will? When we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the whim of others? When people devoid of whatsoever competence are made judges over experts and are granted authority to treat them as they please? These are the novelties which are apt to bring about the ruin of commonwealths and the subversion of the state. Galileo Galilei
Even when the experts all agree they may well be mistaken. Bertrand Russell
In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here – we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell. Norman Mailer
An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less. Nicholas Murray Butler, attributed
The man who swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when he took to the stand as a forensic scientist. The fake forensic expert worked for over twenty years on over 700 cases, all without a qualification to his name. Conmen Case Files: Morrison, 2007
Gene Morrison earned up to ten times the amount he paid the experts. ibid.
He simply started working as a forensic investigator. ibid.
The scale of the con was monumental. ibid.
Gene Morrison was in serious trouble with the police in Manchester. ibid.
The four victims who came forward were aged between 8 years old and 15 years old. ibid.
An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore. Edward de Bono
An expert is someone who knows a lot about the past. Tom Hopkins
To allow expert medical evidence to determine what risks are material and, hence, should be disclosed and, corollaratively, what risks are not material is to hand over to the medical profession the entire question of the scope of the duty of disclosure, including the question whether there has been a breach of that duty. Supreme Court of Canada, Reibl v Hughes (1980) 114 DLR (3d) 1
Experts may blind themselves by expertise. The courts should protect the citizen against risks which professional men and others may ignore. Professor A Montrose, Is Negligence an Ethical or a Sociological Concept? 1958
The issue for the court, in essence, is to untangle the reasons offered by the differing medical experts, rather than to be concerned superficially with the description of the practice. I Kennedy & A Grubb, Medical Law
Experts – from criminologists to real-estate agents – use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda. However, they can beat at their own game. And in the face of the Internet, their informational advantage is shrinking every day – as evidence by, among other things, the falling price of coffins and life-insurance premiums. Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, Freakonomics
Journalists need experts as badly as experts need journalists. Every day there are newspaper pages and television newscasts to be filled, and an expert who can deliver a jarring piece of wisdom is always welcome. Working together, journalists and experts are the architects of much conventional wisdom. ibid.
Has there ever been another art so devoutly converted into a science as the art of parenting. ibid.
Over the recent decades, a vast and diverse flock of parenting experts has arisen. ibid.
No one is more susceptible to an expert’s fearmongering than a parent. Fear is in fact a major component of the act of parenting. ibid.
But fear thrives in the present tense. That is why experts rely on it; in a world that is increasingly impatient with long-term processes, fear is a potent short-term play. ibid.
We cannot all become experts in everything. I’m a biologist and I’m manifestly not an expert in Physics. So is it just faith when I accept the Big Bang, Quantum Theory – not really … it’s not blind faith, it’s reasoned faith. Richard Dawkins, with Matt Dillahunty Vancouver 6th November 2016
I’m as expert as a palsy victim doing brain surgery with a pipe wrench. Sin City 2005 starring Jessica Alba & Mickey Rourke & Brittany Murphy & Clive Owen & Bruce Willis & Elijah Wood & Rutger Hauer & Makenzie Vega & Devon Aoki & Alexis Bledel & Powers Boothe & Rosario Dawson & Benicio del Toro & Michael Clarke Duncan & Rick Gomez & Carla Gugino et al, director Miller & Rodriguez & Tarantino, Willis