so real-talk: my wife is a humanities person by training. but she knows some Chinese (daughter learning). kept religious track of what was happening in Wuhan in January. we were doing some social isolation by Jan 20th.

because of her. she's not an "expert." https://t.co/CpfzA7K9Ab

— Razib "self-quarantine if you Khan!" (@razibkhan) March 22, 2020

The attempted erasure of all this from history is under way as the “experts” truly failed in this instance as they have so often recently. Many of them were writing impassioned screeds just a few months ago about how Covid-19 was nothing to worry about, and that we should be concentrating instead on the common flu.

Meanwhile, we were buying supplies as we suspected what was to come*. I have no credentials and no epidemiological expertise, but I am not a fucking dumbass.

On balance, listening to experts is better than not — but one must be very careful as many experts are anything but, no matter their credentials. Often they are no better than laypeople because they only really know one tiny, tiny area of their own field and nothing else.

*Though I had no idea the toilet paper thing would happen and I still don’t understand it.