SCIENTISTS are normally seen as the most sensible, rational type of person. Scientists are thought to be logical, but last week a physicist showed the human side of science by getting magnets stuck up his nose.

He wasn’t a three-year-old who picked up some strong magnets and did something silly. He was an Australian astrophysicist with a PhD. As my late sister would have said, all brains and no common sense.

To be fair his initial idea was to design a device that warned you when your hands were getting close to your face and is a nice idea. His first error, however, was that he is not an electronic expert – he studies space. The second was that he designed a circuit that would sound an alarm when your hands were not near your face and only shut off when you put your hands close to your face – he had it back to front. He got the magnets stuck up his nose playing around seeing if the magnets work through flesh and bone.

Experts are great but far too often we see some of them going beyond their level of competence, certainly their expertise, far too often. I know that this may seem a bit rich coming from a columnist who will talk about many things, often outside my expertise, but for me there is a difference between setting yourself up as an “expert” who can comment on things and passing an opinion.

Michael Gove famously said that the general public has had enough of “experts” and we should listen less to the experts. I doubt he is saying that now, during a pandemic – the greatest public health threat we’ve seen globally for more than 100 years. Yet there is a grain of truth in his notion that not all experts are good experts.

Online I’ve seen fake news where “experts” promote silly cures for coronavirus. Often, they make much of their titles or qualifications – but when you dig around you find that the PhD and the title doctor they use so freely is not related to medicine.

Even if they did have a medical degree, there are so many specialisms that the expert in heart surgery may know little of the intricacies of virology or epidemiology (the science of how diseases spread).

I have also seen enough armchair statisticians claim and counter claim predictions of deaths, peaks, flattening curves to tell us what will happen, that it makes my head spin. Media has a role to play – broadcast and print – in not pushing the views and opinions of people (no matter how famous or infamous) as if they were expert views.

Experts have their place and anyone claiming expertise should be prepared to define the limits of their expertise. One thing that has changed for the better, in my opinion, is that some of our top scientists have had to learn (very quickly) how to convey complex scientific ideas in plain English.

I have been impressed by the Chief Medical Officer, his deputy and the Chief Scientific Officer. Rather than a politician in the middle I would prefer there was nobody putting a spin on what has been said.

Have a separate political briefing, but when that does happen, we need politicians to give straight answers to simple questions not political rhetoric or avoiding difficult questions.

Just below the experts are those who are informed and understand – they have a duty to explain, but not to pronounce themselves as “experts” just because they understand. In setting up this column I was asked what I’d like it to be called. “Making sense of it” is my way of saying I’m not an expert in everything I write about – but I am informed, and I try to understand. It’s communicating that understanding that is my role.

I’ve had to relocate temporarily to be with my mother who, at 90, is highly vulnerable and who has health issues and dementia.

I’ve moved to Wales, back to my childhood home. As I try to continue to fulfil my daytime work, I am also wrestling with devolved governments, chaotic systems and a growing realisation that if you are not part of the digital age, which she is not, you can be invisible.

Luckily, as someone who is (I think) informed and who does understand I can navigate some very difficult issues and networks – it’s tiring and certainly not fun.

As we come out of this crisis we need to pause, reset and think again about our core values, who we trust (as experts) and how we hold to account those who are not.

We must also learn again to value everyone and make the invisible more visible.

Too often people disappear as the digital age takes over.