Expertise: Stories about knowledge

Experts are a dime a dozen, but true expertise is hard to come by. In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers – who shared their stories at our annual Proton Prom fundraiser this week – struggle with finding the knowledge they seek.

We’re especially grateful to the Burroughs Wellcome Fund for supporting the event and making this all possible.

Part 1: When Zach Weinersmith agrees to create a trivia game, he doesn’t realize how hard it is to come up with facts that are both interesting and actually true.

Zach Weinersmith is a cartoonist, best known for making the comic strip SMBC. He co-authored the NYT bestselling pop science book Soonish, illustrated the NYT bestselling Open Borders. His work has been featured in too many places and society is the worse for it.

Part 2: Concerned about his eyesight, comedian Josh Johnson desperately searches for a good doctor.

Josh Johnson is a stand-up, Emmy-nominated writer, performer, and NAACP award-winner from Louisiana by way of Chicago. He is currently a writer on The Daily Show, and is a former writer and performer on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he made his late-night debut. Johnson is Comedy Central’s ‘most watched comedian ever’ with 40M+ views to date across their platforms. As a stand-up, Johnson performs at clubs, colleges, and festivals around the world. Johnson was named Comedy Central’s “Comic to Watch” in 2015, a “New Face” at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in 2016, and “New York's Funniest” in 2018. Comedy Central released Johnson’s first hour-long special #(Hashtag) in June 2021, and he taped his second hour-long special at The Bourbon Room in Los Angeles in May 2022, which is set to debut early 2023. Johnson’s self-released comedy and music mixtape album Elusive, was described by Vanyaland as “live stand-up observational humor with musical compositions. Both elements wade in and out of political and social waters between the two “arcs” of the multi-genre epic". Johnson also co-hosts two podcasts, The Josh Johnson Show (with fellow stand-up Logan Nielsen) and Hold Up (with The Daily Show colleague Dulcé Sloan). Johnson’s other credits include, CONAN (TBS), @Midnight, Kevin Hart's Hart of The City, The New Negroes, and This Week at The Comedy Cellar on Comedy Central. Johnson lives in New York and can be seen performing regularly at The Comedy Cellar.

Episode Transcript

Part 1

My name is Zach Weinersmith. I'm a cartoonist. My wife is a research biologist, and we write popular science books together. And we are, if you like, science communicators. And because of that, we are very angry, unhappy people. We're very anxious people. The particular way in which we're anxious is about being wrong. We don't like being wrong. We're so uncomfortable about being wrong that we don't even like being right.

We are the kind of people who, if you wanted to say the earth revolved around the sun, we would want three primary sources, and even then we would say something like, "The Earth probably revolves around the sun to the best of our knowledge."

Zach Weinersmith shares his story at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY in May 2023. Photo by Zhen Qin.

And the way we handle this anxiety is we get together and we build really big, meaty, intimidating bibliographies. And you may be under the impression that the point of a bibliography is for future scholars to use as a reference, but that's not true.

A bibliography is like the antlers on a buck – it is not useful, it is a display to fend off challengers. And that's what we're like.

And a few years ago, we got the opportunity to work on a trivia board game and it was a really good deal. We got a really good designer, and there was a company that would handle the distribution, and production, and everything. And all we had to do was write down 2,000 true and interesting things. Glad you guys realized that's stupid.

So it was actually going really well at first. Did you know, for example, that vampire bats use an anticoagulant and it's called Draculin? Isn't that amazing? You know, there is a molecule. It's C10H14O. Does anyone know it? Yeah. If you do, it's 2D molecular structure, it looks like a penguin, and it's called Penguinone. Amazing. Yeah. So we had all these facts, it was going really well. My favorite was that there's a genus of wasps called "Aha". And in that genus, there is this species, and its species name is "Ha". The Linnaean nomenclature is "Aha Ha". Oh, you've heard of it!

And so, we were doing great at first until we got to about 500 questions, which is a quarter of the way there. And we just sort of looked at each other and said something like, "What in God's name happens now?"

So we've both been researchers for like 30 years between us, and I did the math, and we had apparently picked up like one true thing per month during our entire careers, and we didn't know what to do.

So we went to the Internet and we were like, “okay, there's all these listicles and there's like Facebook science websites and they've got information. All we have to do to keep our antlers is to source it and make sure it's accurate.” And it turns out the Internet is great for getting information, unless you want it to be true.

And there were two problems. One very common problem is just that the information is simply inaccurate. Like, did you know that women who live together tend to cycle together? Do you know this? It's not true. It comes from a paper that did poor statistical analysis on a small sample size, and from the human tendency to underweight the likelihood of coincidence, it's probably not correct. But, it's everywhere.

And that alone is kind of interesting. But you can't turn it into trivia because you can't have a question like what do women's private areas probably not do when they get together?

But the other thing that was bad is there were statements that couldn't even possibly be true. They weren't, they didn't have a sufficient amount of information in them to carry the truth around. And so, for example, there's this fact repeated all over the Internet, never with citations that ostriches have bigger eyes than brains. And you think, “Well, wait. What does that mean?”

My wife and I would get into these, like, existential conversations about what it could mean. Like there's two species of ostrich. Which one are we talking about? Are we talking about an average? Are we talking about adults? Males? Females? Juveniles? I mean, like how are you measuring size? Right? An eyeball is a sphere and a brain is not. Are you doing an axis? Or surface area? Or volume? What is size? Isn't the universe expanding? I don't know.

And so you find yourself, as I did, up at four in the morning and you're reading Morphological Assessment of the African Ostrich Struthio Camelus 2015 Karkouri et al. and you're trying to, and I'm sorry for this, eyeball the relative size of these eyes and brains. And finally, you give up because you can't read five papers on behalf of a single crappy trivia question.

So we gave up on that and we went to friends, and we have nerdy friends, and we were like, "Do you know anything?" And it turned out they didn't.

The guy who gave us, we had a friend named Daniel Whiteson, he gave us 50 trivia questions and he was the champion. The next down was like six. And then down from that it was 0 to 1, inclusive.

And so we took another strategy, we started buying these old books, books that were around before the word trivia even meant a game you would play, like from 100 years ago, and it turns out they're just like listicles from today, they just have different wrong information. And like, did you know that women have a favorite color? It's blue! That was in a book.

As a fun fact, did you know that you can add baking soda to spoiled milk and then it tastes better? That was a fun fact from the 1920s.Well, I don't think they said fun fact. It's a sad fact. But my favorite was there was a book from the 1930 that said, according to people who know this sort of thing, the Greek language is the best one.

And so we started to get kind of weird. You know, my wife and I, at the time, we were working on a book about space settlement, it's called “A City on Mars”, you can ask me about Elon Musk's relationship with the truth after the show, if you'd like. But we started, we started getting weird. And worst of all was the erotic trivia deck. We had promised to make 500 original erotic questions.

And I will tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the state of erotic trivia in this country is poor. And I mean this, I speak as an expert, books of erotic trivia do not typically provide bibliographies. They have no antlers and they do not care.

And so, for example, did you know that in the 1930 you could buy radium condoms? Did you know that you're wrong? You don't know that. It's not true. It seems like something we would do in the 30s. But I have a source for this, which is the Museum of Radium, there was a brand called Radium condoms. They did not actually contain radium. It would be sort of like if after the show you went to buy neon condoms and you thought they should contain actual elemental neon, which they I don't have a citation for this, but I don't think they do.

Yeah, actually, we started to get weird. My wife got really weird, though. So we were working on this, that space settlement book. We'd finished the manuscript and she started peppering it with caveats. So all of a sudden sentences would start with "It is likely," and "It may be the case," and "It is possibly". And we don't really fight. My wife and I don't really fight, but the closest we ever got is she was putting words like "probably" in front of basic planetary facts.

And, you know, so we eventually got towards the end, we got 2000 questions and by the time it was done, we'd gotten kind of warped.

I remember my daughter, who's eight years old at the time, she came home from third grade and she told me some fun fact about Ancient Egypt. And I said something to the gist of which was, "Sweetie, you've under-specified, because Ancient Egypt was a long period of time and you can't just say the thing happened in Ancient Egypt. Go back, do better." I think, I believe I have apologized for that, but I don't know.

So after a while, we just got kind of crazy. You developed this weird relationship with reality. Like you go outside, and there are buildings, and people say they won't fall over, but they said stuff about ostrich eyeballs and women's private parts and radioactive condoms. So I don't know what to believe anymore. And I'll be giving the speech in Times Square tonight.

We finally got it done, though. We got it done. We ended up just sort of reading books, and rolling it into our normal schedule, and grinding out like, like ten questions a day and eventually got done. It's in press. Our antlers are huge. Back off.

And with talks like this you're supposed to close with how you were moved and how you ruminated on your problem and you become a better person, and I have not. I have not made peace with any person, place, time, period, or concept. I am less tolerant, quicker to judge. I have a less expansive view of the world. And so, I was asked to say something moderately uplifting, and the best I could come up with was to say it's kind of amazing that civilization just keeps shambling forward with the amount of intellectual poison just coursing through its veins 24-hours a day.

And so I'll just leave with this, that, you know, a lot of people today will tell you society just can't go on with the level of ignorance. And I will tell you, if ignorance could have destroyed society, it would have done it 10,000 years ago.

Thank you very much.

Part 2

Okay, so I know for a fact that everyone in this room has not read The Death of Expertise, because I have not read The Death of Expertise. But something I would hear a lot, I heard it back when the book came out in 2017, to just perfectly encapsulated how everyone was feeling. It was like the death of experts, the death of, you know, listening to logic, having an analysis of the world critical thinking. It's only feels like it's gotten worse. And I wanted to tell you a story about expertise and my eyes.

When you're a kid, expertise is assumed. You know, when you're little and you look at adults, the big people, you just assume every adult with a job was made to do that job. Everyone. Every pilot was meant to fly. Every preacher was chosen by God personally. He went to Robert and was like, "You got to do it, dawg. You're too good. You fire on stage. Okay? Just I need you to tell them about me just every Sunday. Just hit them with the truth, right?"

Josh Johnson shares his story at The Bell House in Brooklyn, NY in May 2023. Photo by Zhen Qin.

And the thing that I think solidified it for me and all the other kids around me was career day. Did you all have Career Day, back in the day? This is the craziest thing about Career Day that only started bothering me now is that you'd be in school and it'd be Career Day and people's parents would come, and they'd tell you what they did, but they didn't have to tell you about the journey.

You know, they would just show up and be like, "Oh, I'm a, I'm a doctor" or "I'm an engineer. I use math to make bridges," Right? And we were just like, we would hear that. We'd be like, you know, a botanist would come be like, “Hey, you're a science.” And we'd be like, “What?”

Like, that was just every Career Day. But they didn't have to walk in and tell you everything. They didn't have to walk in and be like, "Hi, I'm an engineer. I use math to make bridges. I mean, I do now. I it's been a long road. I flunked out my freshman year because I joined a frat and things went awry. I developed a bit of a drinking problem and everything. So then I had to go to a junior college just to like, get the credits to get back to college. And then from there, I went on to like pass a couple of tests, but then I had to take another break because it was all becoming too much. And then I finally graduated and got my MBA and everything, which felt really good. But now it was time to like get out there in the world and had all these student loans. I had so many student loans. It was crazy. It was debt that I thought I'd never get from under. And so, you know, I'm dating and I'm trying to work and trying to pay off my student loans. And then I meet, I meet someone and it's like she just wasn't the right person. She just was not the right person for me. And it was one of those things where, you know, you're dating and you're meeting people and you're trying to find your way through life, but you're also trying to find someone that's not going to make you have a kid immediately because now we're all in our 30s, so people are starting to settle down. It's time to have a kid, but it's like I'm not ready to have a kid. I still got a ton of debt. I'm freaking out all the time and like, why would I want to bring a kid into this world? You know what I'm saying? Like this crazy screwed up world with genocide and like, all of this pain and suffering and no one seems to care. We've gone into this capitalist dystopia and everything. And so then I finally met Margaret, and she was just great. She, like, completed me. And that's that's why, you know, that's why I'm here and that's why I look a little bit older than the other dads in the room because, you know, we had Timmy late in life. Hey, Timmy, how are you doing?"

There was none of that. None of it. Ever. At all. So someone would just walk in and be like, "Hey, I'm an engineer. I use math to make bridges." And we'd be like, "What?" You know? I brought up my eyes because I just need a good doctor. There's got to be one in a city of millions of people. There's got to be a good doctor. The doctors I've dealt with,they've tried, but they haven't been great. Not even just eye doctors. Like just doctors in general. They're overworked. They're very tired, you know.

I went to make two appointments in one day. I made an appointment at the eye doctor. An appointment at the ear, nose and throat doctor. I'm putting my health in these people's hands because they're experts. You know, and I went to the ear, nose and throat doctor and he had the popsicle stick and he put in my mouth and he was like, "Go, Ah!"

And I was like, "Ah."

And he's like, "No, like, ah."

I was like, "ah."

He's like, "No. Ah."

I'm like, "ah."

And my mouth is all the way open. I'm like, "ah."

He's like, "No deeper."

And I was like, "Don't say that to me. Not for this, please. That is for other stuff. There is no way for me to go deeper right now. You're supposed to be an expert. This is crazy."

And while he's telling me to go deeper, we're all human, but it happened, and I cannot get over it.

While he's telling me to go deeper. My doctor. A doctor. My doctor, coughed in my mouth. Because he was like, "deeper, deeper." And I was like, "duh."

And you could hear the moment when it happened because it was a light cough. But I was like, "ah ah ah ah, ah, ah, ah."

And once again, we're all human, but this is half off now, right? Like, you can't you can't charge my full insurance now that I got whatever you got. You know what I mean?

Because good experts are hard to find. Like expertise is everywhere. Everyone's going to pretend to be an expert. But good, real expertise is hard to find. An expertise that makes you feel like you're in the presence of an expert is hard to find. I didn't even have a good doctor when I was in Louisiana. That's where I grew up. And when I was there, I went to the doctor, I was visiting home and I had just been feeling sick, and so I went to a doctor. And this happened because we were in the South. I know that. Anybody here from the south? Okay, so you'll understand. Just you. But you'll understand.

I went to the doctor, I wasn't feeling well. He gave me some antibiotics, and then he said, you know, "Hey, it looks like your diet is good, so stick to that. Get back to exercising when you feel like it. And. And I'll pray for you."

And I was like, "Don't say that to me. Not you."

Like, anytime there is an expert, you don't want anything else involved. Just do your whole job. From you to me, please. Right. That feels like you didn't do it all. That's if you went to a mechanic and they were like, "I checked the brakes. They're good. And I went to rotate your tires and everything, and I'm gonna pray for you." It's like it doesn't sound like you're finished. Then that's crazy. Don't say that to me.

But all of this is leading up to the fact that I went to the ear, nose and throat doctor, and then I went to the eye doctor and I need glasses.

I need glasses very badly. I've needed glasses for so long. A while. Like I can see the essence of all of you. I see so bad and it's affecting my life. Like as you could imagine, it's just it's starting to be a big deal. And so I went to the eye doctor. I went to an expert. And. Not everyone has money, you know what I mean? Not everyone has enough money as a as a practice to be impressive looking. But if you're a good doctor and you're an expert, then I'll listen to you, because you know. Right. No one can take away what you know.

But I went to the eye doctor and it was very small and it was one of those buildings that was like just a store, it was essentially a storefront, right? But it it only had three little patient rooms and the walls were paper thin, like too thin. Like HIPA violation thin. Like, we all know each other's business in this place. And so I'm sitting in the middle room, and I'm hearing some chattering. On the right side and the doctor walks out and must have forgot that there was like a crack door in front of him, like he closed the door to the patient's room that he was in. But he's talking to another doctor that he stopped in the hallway and he's like, "In. In that. This n*** blind. I can't. I don't know. Don't know what to do. This is horrible. This is not my fault. Okay?"

And he started saying all the expert things like, "he got macular degeneration. Like I did my best, right? I can't do anything."

And the other doctor is just like, "Well, calm down. Just tell him. Tell him. That's all you have to do. It's just a fact."

The other guy, the other doctor, the doctor he's panicking, "I can't tell him. All right. I've been working with this dude for a year and a half. I feel like I've failed."

Supposed be an expert. Expert doesn't mean you can do anything about things sometimes. It just means that you know. Right.

He's like "I can't tell him."

And then the other doctor says, "Look, he probably knows he's blind. All right. Just by virtue of him coming in today, he has a hunch that things aren't going well. So just tell him."

And he's like, "I can't tell him. I feel like I failed. All right. I don't know. I don't know why it's this guy. I don't know why it's right now, but I'm just I can't. I can't do it."

And the other doctor says, "Look, he can't see you. It doesn't matter who says it. Just do a voice or something."

And the other doctor went back into the room. And did that. He just pretended to be two people so he could break the news in a slightly different voice.

And it was the most harrowing experience to sit and listen through. I have heard rough sex through a hotel wall and this was so much worse. To know what was happening, because in my head I'm like, "Maybe he heard them, too. Maybe he also heard" Because if I heard, then he heard right. But apparently they were just enough distance away that this guy is like, "Really? So you both think that there's nothing that can be done?"

I was horrified. And so I just, I just walked out. I just felt like I walked out immediately because the other doctor came in to, like, talk to me. Right after that happened, I was like, "I forgot I'm late."

And I just left. And so I still don't have glasses.

Yeah, but that's what I learned from that experience, genuinely, is that an expert is not the same as a miracle worker, and an expert is not the same as a professional. I'm just looking for, like, a good doctor, that's professional.

Thank you all so much.