The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation (Revised Edition)Random House Publishing Group, 4. aug 1998 - 480 pages Did you ever have the uneasy feeling the experts are not . . . well, expert? "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." --Irving Fisher, professor of economics at Yale University, October 17, 1929 "Forget it, Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel." --Irving Thalberg's warning to Louis B. Mayer regarding Gone With the Wind "We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out." --Decca Recording Company executive, turning down the Beatles, 1962 "With over fifty foreign cars already on sale here the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself."--Business Week, 1968 "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." --President of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977 "Bill Clinton will lose to any Republican who doesn't drool on stage." --The Wall Street Journal, in a 1995 editorial The Experts Speak systematically catalogues, footnotes, and sets straight these and a couple of thousand other examples of expert misunderstanding, miscalculation, egregious prognostication, boo-boos, and just plain lies. The experts have been wrong about everything under, including, and beyond the sun: time, space, the sexes, the races, the environment, economics, politics, crime, education, the media, history, and science. In this expanded and updated edition (now more error-filled than ever), we see just how much the experts don't know. But the book also goes deeper, presenting a through-the-looking-glass chronicle of human knowledge: the story of what was and is so, as seen through the story of what we wanted to and did believe. |
Contents
Who What Where How and Precisely When? | 3 |
The Origin of Life and Evolution of Living Things | 9 |
The Races Creeds and Colors of Man | 22 |
A Brief Sampler of Metaphysical Opinion | 30 |
Hazards of Life in the Biosphere | 45 |
Dismal? Yes Science? No | 53 |
Crime and the Law | 70 |
Politics | 81 |
PART FIVE | 223 |
Clean Silent Servant of Humankind | 232 |
Construction Technology | 240 |
The Quest for Reliable Transportation | 248 |
Military Technology | 262 |
Rocketry and Space Exploration | 275 |
PART | 283 |
Notable Actors on the World Stage | 306 |
International Relations | 104 |
Literature | 169 |
The Theater | 184 |
Cinema | 190 |
Music | 197 |
Drawing and Painting | 203 |
The World of Sport | 209 |
Astronomy | 319 |
Ohms Law | 324 |
Physics Nuclear | 330 |
The Institute of Expertology | 343 |
Illustration Sources | 397 |
Copyright | |
Other editions - View all
The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation ... Victor S Navasky,Christopher Cerf No preview available - 1998 |
The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation Christopher Cerf,Victor S. Navasky No preview available - 1984 |