[rgejman]

You can honor expertise while acknowledging bias and still come up with empirically correct conclusions (otherwise I wouldn't be a scientist) that are based on relatively basic shared values. Expertise is an antidote to propaganda when people think critically about the problems at stake. As the author notes, David Foster Wallace was right that cynicism is lethal; but cynicism can also be enabling in those who are free thinkers. The article raises important points about how we got ourselves into this mess. Good reading. As usual it occurs to me that the goals of scientific exploration are as universal as we get because they aim to (a) discover the unknown and (b) to make the world better through discovery. Take that, humanists!