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| - The scientific subtrope of Cassandra Truth, the Ignored Expert is a scientist or expert who predicts a major disaster to happen, but is not believed by his contemporaries. No matter how qualified he is and how urgent and relevant his expertise is to the problem at hand, his warnings will be treated like madness or lies. The Ignored Expert will be ignored by his peers, or reviled and ridiculed regardless of evidence, credibility or persuasiveness. If he's lucky, he'll manage to persuade a philanthropist to help, or make The Hero aware of the problem. In extreme cases, he will be fighting nearly alone to stop (or at least expose and delay) a nigh unstoppable disaster. His situation isn't helped if he has a reputation as (or is) an Agent Mulder.
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| abstract
| - The scientific subtrope of Cassandra Truth, the Ignored Expert is a scientist or expert who predicts a major disaster to happen, but is not believed by his contemporaries. No matter how qualified he is and how urgent and relevant his expertise is to the problem at hand, his warnings will be treated like madness or lies. The Ignored Expert will be ignored by his peers, or reviled and ridiculed regardless of evidence, credibility or persuasiveness. If he's lucky, he'll manage to persuade a philanthropist to help, or make The Hero aware of the problem. In extreme cases, he will be fighting nearly alone to stop (or at least expose and delay) a nigh unstoppable disaster. His situation isn't helped if he has a reputation as (or is) an Agent Mulder. In natural disaster movies or Science Is Bad stories, expect the Ignored Expert to be the lone voice of sanity warning against a particular course of action that will, of course, be taken. That action could be entrusting the newborn AI with control over nuclear missiles, releasing The Virus in a field test, administering Super Serum to criminals, or the use of machines Powered by a Forsaken Child. If the Ignored Expert himself created the phenomenon he is warning against, he's the Reluctant Mad Scientist. This trope was previously named after Superman's father, Jor-El, a Kryptonian scientist whose dire warnings that their home planet would die were ignored. Famously, he managed to save his son, Kal-El, by putting him on an escape pod and sending him to Earth one of the most successful media franchises in history. The Ignored Expert is very similar to The Cassandra, but he also he has an impressive track record to back himself up. Of course, this doesn't help him one bit, and he can still be subject to Cassandra Did It. If the "expert" is someone totally unrelated to a situation who manages to notice something all the experts working on it have missed, he is an Einstein Sue. An "expert" whose credentials or expertise aren't too clear but is a Designated Hero nonetheless is The Worm Guy. Note that while this trope can be Truth in Television in certain cases, reality is always far more complex. Scientific discoveries need to be repeatedly proven experimentally, so there is a reluctance to immediately accepting new information as fact. The release of findings may also be subject to political pressure, and may thus be suppressed or heavily controlled for political or ideological reasons. Subtrope of Cassandra Truth. Compare They Called Me Mad, Only Sane Man. Contrast Stupid Scientist. Examples of Ignored Expert include:
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