All comments so I have seen so far touch upon a subject with partial validity. If we allow ourselves a more wider-abstraction then I would opine that (not exclu

All comments so I have seen so far touch upon a subject with partial validity. If we allow ourselves a more wider-abstraction then I would opine that (not exclusively to "Americans") we distrust experts because of two limits within any information transmission, 1) compression of information required to summarize something in 5 minutes is lossy and 2) natural degeneracy of the inverse problem required at the receiver (or in other words non-uniquness of retrieved message due to incomplete portfolio of assumptions between transmitter/receiver). [This is compounded with our memory also being temporal and incomplete]. That is horrendously sounding academic/technical description (apologies). In simple terms, one cannot convey all assumptions and entirety of knowledge on a given topic in 5 minutes summary or a headline. 1) Experts speak only about a subset of a problem to make it short, taking for granted implied assumptions -- which many people find easy to "attack" and poke holes at for being non-inclusive. 2) Expert opinion does/cannot state assumptions and consider multi-dimensionality of the interpretation problem which differ among other people. [I take the liberty to attach to this opinion a corollary; that is why freedom of speech is the one of the greatest idea of modern civilization (and lack of it makes life living hell -- just read any old soviet literature). And now, in US and EU, we are cheering governments to establish the very organizations, "truth ministries", and set into motions processes that will do away with one of the most noble of principles. We can allow provision of good intentions which does not change anything.]