The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation

Brilliantly organized, using the categories of Adler's "Outline of Knowledge," The Experts Speak will educate the naive and entertain the cynical with its thousands of well-documented quotes by wise men and women, from Aristotle ("The brain is an organ of minor importance") to Albert Einstein ("There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear]energy will ever be obtainable"). Concise, well-written descriptions of the events that actually happened--usually at variance with informed opinion--add to the dry humor. If you've always wanted to be a self-assured talking head, The Experts Speak will make you an authority on definitive misinformation. --Rob Lightner

Product Description
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.

I was appalled at the extent to which this method is used in _The Experts Speak_, ultimately leading to the spreading of misinformation--not the cataloging of it. I personally checked the book for persons and subjects familiar to me to find that 3 of 4 quotes were both innacurate and the sources were mislabeled AND misquoted. The problem is so widespread, and the resulting misinformation seems designed to support a political agenda of the authors. Buy at your own risk.


Is there life outside the U.S.A.?   September 4, 2003
 12 out of 14 found this review helpful

The idea behind this book is very nice, and the authors are quite successful at making great deal of fun, at the expense of the learned (or sometimes not so learned) experts, who should have known better. Unfortunately for an international reader, the vast majority of the events and personae selected for the book deals with the U.S.A., and may be of little interest to people outside of that country. In particular, if the sections on politics or sports make you more than chuckle occationally, it is a clear sign that you've been watching way too much american television recently.
Overall, it is not a bad book - however, neither it is as hillarious as some reviews would make you believe.