Ronald Reagan, who seems to be startling everyone lately after his support for the Brady gun control bill, recently revealed he visited Germany’s Bitburg cemetery to honor SS troops who actually helped the Jews during the Holocaust. He admits proof for this is difficult to establish, but felt there was enough to convince him.

Many WWII experts and Holocaust researchers remain unconvinced and demand more than word-of-mouth evidence. However, Reagan is such a trusted presence that many people will automatically accept his word as proof.

This blind faith might be a reflection of respect, but to many people, the belief is a reaction to a pervasive phenomena called “expert opinion.”

Reliance on expert opinion seems to be such a media sacred cow that it seems easy to lampoon. After all, scientists have fallen prey to hoaxes even before the Piltdown Man scam and have since been led blindly by such red herrings as cold fusion, the Bermuda Triangle, Kirlian photography and UFOs.

Even when studies are legitimate, questions of scientific value in some areas are often so difficult as to baffle even well-informed laymen. Potential problems like nuclear power and the greenhouse effect are hampered by many such complexities.

The problem is the sum total of the world’s knowledge recently has risen so dramatically it has ironically led to each person’s individual inability to understand much of anything.

And yet, in cases like global warming and nuclear power, people’s need to understand in order to decide is more crucial than ever. The world’s complexity has made informed decisions more necessary and more difficult at the same time.

This led to an increasing reliance and trust by many people of “experts” who interpret the world around them. Undismayed by many instances of error, bias and outright deceit demonstrated by some, these expert-junkies, especially in the media, seek out the opinions of the many lettered and degreed thinkers like bees to honey.

If there is some dispute or difference of opinion on some issue the most often sought solution is to simply run opposing expert views side by side on a newspaper page and be done with it. Too often the media leaves it up to the general public to hopelessly grope for answers it should be providing.

If this situation is bad then the opposite is even worse. All too often, some people view the complexity and contradiction of expert opinion as proof it is worthless.

It is this attitude that leads people to so easily swallow Reagan’s word-of-mouth explanations as proofs. More dangerously, deceptions as the acceptance of astrology, alien visitations, psi powers and even the denial of the existence of the Holocaust become “plausible” under such anti-expert tendencies.

There are no easy ways for people to accept the judgement of experts. Increased research accountability is one definite solution and NIU’s recent efforts to guarantee open access to research by scientific peers is a step in the right direction.

But above all, people need to develop a healthy, positive skepticism motivated by a love for truth stronger than the love for comfort. Otherwise, we may as well all still believe in Santa Claus.