Phrases that must die, #1: "Nobody could have seen this coming."

What is most notable about the phrase, "Nobody could have seen this coming," is that it is never uttered in reference to something truly unpredictable, such as a plane crash. Shockingly, the more inevitable an event is, the louder the professional predictors will protest that it was unforeseeable. Why is this?

This particular irony is instructive in deciphering the phrases true meaning: "I didn't see this coming, and since I must be smarter than everyone else, none of them could have seen it coming either." This mainly stems, I believe, from a mistaken belief that professionals in a field are inherently more intelligent that laypeople.

I do not mean to suggest that professional opinions are worthless; the knowledge and experience that comes from decades invested in understanding a field is of irreplaceable value. However, we must recognize that even the Einsteins of the world are prone to spells of myopia, if not outright stupidity. Yes, even the Einstein succumbed to such on occasion, most prominently in his dismissal of quantum physics out of a stubborn insistence that the universe make since.

What I advocate on this issue is something which our culture selects against: humility." Although, "I am always right," sounds far more impressive than, "I am right a statistically significant proportion of the time," it leads to far more embarrassment when one misses the mark. To insist that one's own intellectual failings must be shared by every other observer is not only arrogant, it's insulting.

This is why the phrase, "Nobody could have seen this coming," must die.