Science watch: End the ‘Priesthood’ of Experts

“A problem arises,” notes Jeffrey A. Singer at Reason, when some experts “exert outsized influence over the opinions of other experts” and so “establish an orthodoxy enforced by a priesthood.” The pandemic “provided many examples,” on kids’ risk from the disease, “one-size-fits-all” vax policies and other issues. “The science priesthood must adapt to a world where specialized knowledge has been democratized” and “reach a rapprochement with the uncredentialed.” Yes, “outlandish claims that COVID-19 vaccines . . . implant people with microchips” are nonsense. “But a little tolerance and respect for outsiders can go a long way,” otherwise “the rejection of challenges to the conventional wisdom” come off as “the defensive reaction of self-interested elites.”

Conservative: Bidens Fit Media Image of Trumps

“President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden are the picture of scandal and corruption that the Democrats and corporate media tried to make former President Donald Trump and his family out to be,” sighs The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd. Unlike the “collusion” hoax, “there are plenty of real scandals about the Biden family and their conflicts of interest,” since “Hunter exploited his father’s political reputation to strike business deals with oligarchs in Ukraine and China,” as bank receipts show. The real scandal: “the legacy media’s lack of coverage” of the Biden family, “which has raked in millions from foreign oligarchs and clearly profited off of the now-president’s name, reputation, and connections.”

From the left: The Fed’s ‘Golf’ Game

Philadelphia Federal Reserve prez Patrick Harker actually cited the soaring cost of golf-club membership as a sign of inflation, smirks TK News’ Matt Taibbi: “Inflation is so bad, you might have to play a public course this summer. To quote [Joseph] Conrad’s Kurtz: The horror! The horror!” That follows Christopher Waller of the Fed board complaining of trying to buy a house in the “crazy” DC market, without noting how Fed policies have fueled a huge wave of private-equity firms buying up homes by the tens of thousands. “From March, 2020 on the Fed went on a buying spree, pumping roughly $5 trillion into the economy, growing its balance sheet to above $9 trillion”; this “fire-hose of Fed cash . . . extended almost limitless credit to institutional players.” Talk of the Fed’s challenge now in unwinding its vast spending is partly spin from those “who’d rather the public not look back too much at the Fed-fueled orgy of the last two years.”

Foreign desk: Don’t Let Putin Gain a Thing

“Behold the dead in Bucha, where illusions about the ‘rules-based international order’ are buried with the bodies,” laments The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board. Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv suburb only after “laying waste to much of the city” and “murdering its trapped population.” The pullback “marks a setback” for Vladimir Putin, but Team Biden is wrong to talk of “strategic defeat,” as if Ukraine has won. “Russia has killed thousands of Ukrainians, inflicted untold damage, and still controls more territory than it did before” invading. “The West’s goal shouldn’t be some abstract ‘strategic defeat’ but an actual defeat.” Otherwise, “there will be more invasions, more war crimes, and more horrific scenes like those in Bucha in the future.”

Energy industry insider: Let Us Invest

“Energy security and a cleaner power system can be advanced simultaneously” — but, warns Todd Snitchler at The Hill, “an absolutist stance in pursuit of one priority that neglects the reality of what the grid needs” puts “reliability and affordability” at risk. Political “rhetoric and decisions over the past two years too often have ignored the realities of operating the nation’s grid reliably” and cheaply. To get natural gas to Europe now, US policies must allow for “investment in necessary infrastructure and supply.” It’s the only way to “deliver reliable, affordable and cleaner power” that “keeps the lights on” and “the economy humming.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board