The Moonspeaker:
Where Some Ideas Are Stranger Than Others...

Staying In Your Lane Can Be Hard (2026-03-02)

Photograph of numbered lanes in sao paulo by Teo Romera, december 2008. Image quoted from Romera's flickr photostream on 14 february 2025.

The current state of public discussion and debate is terrible. The difficulties are about more than just the continuing crack down against actual "free speech" let alone "fair speech," although at the moment the most widely recognized sources of trouble are so-called "social media" and the rest of the media, which is generally a corrupt mess in the putative west. These are two real factors, and yet, they may not be quite as important as we are encouraged to think. The reason I suggest this is an interesting reading experience, in which a scientist known for demonstrated brilliance in his field, produced some of the most ridiculous, harebrained, and evidence-free commentary on a different field I had ever heard. I am not an expert in the other field this scientist was speaking on, but what he said was strange enough sounding to me that some basic research and original source checking was in order. Of course, this is always a good idea when seeking to make sense of an area outside our own experience and expertise. But what the hell happened to this scientist that he was pontificating apparently without having done any due diligence research into the topic? Otherwise he would not have been stating ridiculous, harebrained, evidence-free things. Even though any of us can pop off about something without being especially informed about it, we are encouraged to expect a scientist to do better and therefore speak with authority based in checking the receipts, so to speak. Failing that, a naïve person would expect a scientist or other authority figure to demur from commenting absent consideration of real evidence. But then, such an authority figure might deny lacking any real basis for their opinions, and do so in the teeth of any suggestion or even proof to the contrary. This indicates the crux of this specific issue.

Let's step back a moment and consider the thoughtpiece as a form, which is of course just that of a brief personal essay consistent with the genre still most famously written in by Michel de Montagne. The topics of these articles don't range too far afield, yet they are explorations of issues and ideas, and a subset of them are certainly removed from my immediate expertise. They are definitely positioned as and intended to be no more than explorations, not authoritative sources, although I do try to include intriguing links where that makes sense to help readers delve deeper into the subject themselves. Furthermore, I don't try to confabulate or misrepresent what I have learned or found. While a random writer on the web should not be deemed a particular authority, even so I would be leery of presenting a more forceful discussion or explanation outside of my own genuine areas of knowledge and experience, and then my inclination is to make sure to provide as many links and references as possible to support further exploration and checking receipts alike. My say so alone can't make me an authority to others who don't know me, although I could build some authority in the case of specific topics via a record of well-written and referenced pieces. Nevertheless, it is not likely people would take much of what I might say about other things with less by way of apparent evidence of more than surface knowledge too seriously. They might greatly appreciate any links I may provide and words or phrases helpful for plugging into search engines, which would be pretty neat. It can be terribly tempting to go running out of my lane based on strong feelings or preconceptions just as it can be to anyone else, but I do strive not to do that, however tempting it may be. This tends to curb such awful mishaps as episodes of foot in mouth and the like, which past a certain age are not easy to recover from.

Okay, so now back to people like that voluble scientist foraying into other areas seemingly without too much background to help him out. The issue is not just a scientist thing, but an apparent "authority" thing. In the "west" such as it is, it appears the only thing a person really needs to be treated as an authority in pretty much any topic suggested to them is to be either rich or famous, plus male and considered "white." Frankly, this is really weird. To become famous typically involves either dumb luck or inheritance, these are not states indicative of anything else about a person. Unfortunately to become rich usually entails criminality and exploitation, so mere luck is not as strong a factor there, and of course a great many rich people didn't "get" that way legally or not, they inherited money and a place in a social network full of other rich people. Yet, scientists can seem like they should be an exception, especially the ones who manage to win such sadly diminished prizes as the famous Nobel. After all, such winners are supposed to be geniuses.

Well, certainly they are in their own fields. But as geniuses in chemistry or physics or whatever, they cannot be expert in every possible topic on Earth. Still basic day to day competency is well within reach via research or basic consideration of more than such eye catching but nearly information-free things as clickbait headlines or ill-written news articles and listicles. But I do get it. Being treated as an "Authority" with capital "A" can go to a person's head.

For famous scientists or anybody else to stay in their lane doesn't mean never having an opinion they might share on an area they aren't experts in with the press and general public. But it does mean refraining from comment when unable to base it in real information and checked receipts. Due to how quickly and far media can spread information, we all have a duty (rich, famous, neither or both) to not act effectively in the role of the boy who cried wolf. Once the mediasphere is polluted, it is incredibly difficult to counter nonsense, confusion, and outright falsehoods, which as we all know too well, is dangerous to society. This is true even if staying in our lane seems like taking the ridiculously long way home.

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