Ignored Expert: Difference between revisions

No matter [[The Professor|how qualified]] he is and how urgent and relevant his expertise is to the problem at hand, his warnings will be treated like [[They Called Me Mad|madness]] or [[Cassandra Truth|lies]]. The '''Ignored Expert''' will be [[Department of Redundancy Department|ignored]] by [[Muggles|his peers]], or [[All of the Other Reindeer|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 Movie|disaster movies]] or [[Science Is Bad]] stories, expect the '''Ignored Expert''' to be the [[Only Sane Man|lone voice of sanity]] warning against a particular course of action that will, of course, be taken. That action could be entrusting the [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|newborn AI]] with control over [[Nuke'Em|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 [[Engineer Exploited For Evil]].

This trope was previously named after [[Superman]]'s father, Jor-El, a Kryptonian scientist whose dire warnings that their home planet [[Earthshattering Kaboom|would die]] were ignored. Famously, he managed to [[Fling a Light Into the Future|save his son]], Kal-El, by putting him on an escape pod and sending him to <s> Earth</s> [[Superman|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]].