The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation (Revised Edition) - Softcover

Navasky, Victor S; Cerf, Christopher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679778063 ISBN 13: 9780679778066

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 1998

Synopsis

The new and updated version of a classic reference work brings the history of distortions, errors, half-truths, and outright lies into the information age.

Who said the following?
-- "The one thing I won't let happen to me is I won't let a ball go through my legs".(1)
-- "640K ought to be enough for anybody".(2)
-- "Bill Clinton will lose to any Republican nominee who doesn't drool on stage".(3)

When first published in 1984, The Experts Speak was hailed by Time magazine as "irreverent, unfair and subversive", and over the years it has proven to be the ultimate resource for skeptics. Since then, we've lived through such monumental world events as the Gulf War, the Iran-contra scandal, and the O. J. Simpson trial, fostering the need to examine once more those sure things that turned out to be dead wrong.

Whether it's business or technology, the arts, the environment, or politics, The Experts Speak documents thousands of examples of expert miscalculation, misunderstanding, egregious prognostication, and boo-boos, all systematically cataloged, footnoted, and set straight.

This is a perfect gift for students of all ages, and sure to remain the lie-detector of record for years to come.

(1) Bill Buckner, Red Sox, first baseman, prior to the 1986 World Series

(2) Bill Gates, Microsoft, 1981

(3) Wall Street Journal editorial, October 1995

About this title

About the Author

Christopher Cerf is the co-editor of The Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook and The Eighties: A Look Back at the Tumultuous Decade, 1980-1989. He is a former contributing editor to the National Lampoon, and he co-edited the newspaper parody Not the New York Times.

Victor Navasky is the publisher and editorial director of The Nation. He is the author of the American Book Award winner Naming Names and Kennedy Justice.

From the Back Cover

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.

From the Inside Flap

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."
--

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679778063
• ISBN 13: 9780679778066
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 445