"Expert?" Topic

As I was reading a recent article where an "Expert" was dead wrong on a topic I began to wonder what makes one an "Expert"? If I have painted thousands of miniatures am I an Expert painter? Is it the amount one reads on a topic? Is it physical experience such as archaeology, physical skill, travel, museum visits, etc.? Is it the educational level attained in an area? The expert referred to above was a University professor. Are we "Expert" Wargamers if we have played x amount of battles, scenarios, campaigns, etc.? How would you classify someone as an "Expert"?

In academia an expert will have read all of the important books on a topic and be cognizant of all of the opposing arguments of interpretation. Experts routinely disagree but not out of ignorance of alternatives. There WILL be a body of facts that experts agree on and which define the subject area -- though the relative importance of facts within that body may still be debated.

Who determines what "the important books" are? This is part of the problem that I am wrestling with. I am beginning to think that an "Expert" is a very loosely defined designation at best. Since I have taught history for 37 years does that make me an expert historian, or an expert teacher? Both? Neither?

My pastor used to say "An expert is a drip under pressure."

He also said "An expert is a drip from out of town."

The two are not mutually exclusive.

My father said two things defined an expert: he was from out of town and he had a briefcase.

For myself, I think doc mcb is right in an academic setting--which is what he says--and there's something of a consensus on what books are important. The peril of being an autodidact is that you can miss important facts and counterarguments.

Otherwise--well, it's not a licensed trade. It's a relative thing. You don't go with Charlie's analysis because he's always right or right by definition, but because he's studied the problem and has a better track record than anyone else you have available.

The danger comes when people stick microphones in Charlie's face and he goes beyond the limits of his expertise. An expert in tax law doesn't know whether you should buy or rent a home: he knows which works best for tax purposes. A Lit PhD may know nothing even of literature if it was written outside her area of concentration. Most of the people showing up in media as "experts" have gotten 'way out of their depth.

And teaching for 37 years makes you a "veteran" and, by itself, nothing more. Do I have to tell the story of Frederick the Great's mules again?

An "expert" is one of those words that means what you want it to mean.
Much like "overrated" and "underrated".

If volume of work produced makes you an "expert", then go for it.

Generally when someone tells me they are an expert – I hold a little tighter to my wallet…

Oh, they're safe enough that way, Disaster--unless you believe them, of course. It's the ones who are going to do you a big favor who are the financial risk.

Well said Robert

Expert: Someone who has made up their mind and formed their 'expertly-informed' opinion?

I've delt with my share of 'subject matter experts (SMEs)' over the years. Generally, I'm a bit skeptical of the non-STEM SMEs and will admit to enjoying getting a pair of SMEs with differing opinions in the same room.

pjm

Not to brag but, I am an expert in picking the Wrong stock picks.
Never under any circumstances take my word for stock picks!

Experts are people who only make BIG mistakes.

Doc MCB for the win. Robert, I might add "survivor", as well as "veteran", to my sobriquet for 37 years of teaching. How many consider yourself "expert" painters out there? Do you consider yourself an expert on your historical period(s) of interest?

I have been hired as an expert witness for civil trials a few times. The Judges annd anpposong counsels accepted my qualifications, though I still felt a bit silly being announced as an expert.

Academics tend not to use the bald term "expert" – it's more a layman's term. And sometimes used by a charlatan.

In academic writing, "expert" is rarely used as it can sound too absolute or too vague unless defined. Academics often prefer more precise alternatives, depending on what they mean:

specialist – someone with deep knowledge in a specific field
"a specialist in Napoleonic military logistics"
scholar – an academic researcher
"a leading scholar of Hellenistic warfare"
authority – someone widely respected in a field
"an authority on Roman frontier studies"
subject-matter expert (SME) – common in applied or interdisciplinary work, less elegant in humanities writing
"consulted subject-matter experts in battlefield archaeology"
practitioner-expert or expert practitioner – used when practical experience matters
recognized expert / acknowledged expert / leading expert – softer than just expert because they imply recognition by others

Academics avoid simply writing "X is an expert" because it can sound:

self-congratulatory (particularly if referring to oneself),
uncritical (who decides?),
or imprecise (expert in what, exactly?).

Instead they often write things like:

"Dr. Smith has published extensively on…"
"Professor Jones is widely regarded as a leading authority on…"
"Associate Professor Brown is a acknowledged expert in medieval siege craft …"

As a term with a degraded or imprecise meaning, it has little use anywhere IMO. Mind you, just because you sport a title such as "Doctor" or "Professor", that doesn't necessarily signify much either.

"Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts".

I usually assume that everyone, even the 'experts', are just winging it.

An expert cannot be self defined.
You are an expert if sombody else sees you as a reliable source of information. Self declared experts are by definition not so.

"I usually assume that everyone, even the 'experts', are just winging it."

Certainly an interesting approach. For myself, I've profited greatly over the years by paying attention to people who had long studied something and demonstably learned something about it. You just have to watch for the limits of their expertise.

A problem I have observed is the risk of being the smartest person in the room

Simply because you are a true expert in one area doesn't mean you are an expert in all areas – which seems to me something that very smart people often completely miss; as Thomas Sowell said, it takes a really smart person to completely mess things up

Take the Chinese One Child Policy – generated by a rocket engineer who had no epidemiologic or health knowledge at all – and look at the demographic disaster it landed them in

While I am considered an expert in a few academic areas, I make sure that I stay within those areas!

I am smart enough to know that I don't know everything, nevermind being an expert.

I may be wrong here, and there are plenty of lawyers who know better than I, but I seem to recall that an expert in legal circles (that is someone who can testify as an "expert") is just soneone who knows more, either by education or experience than the average Joe.
A few years back, before I retired, I was considered an expert in felony sentencing. That doesn't mean I was the "best" ever. There were some who knew more than I, and others (including some judges and lawyers) who knew less.

When I was starting off in grad school, I was pretty sure i knew things. by the time i got my doctorate, I was sure how narrow my knowledge was… I knew a lot about my little area.

These days I'm an SME for the navy base I work on, because i have read and mapped all the archaeological studies ever conducted here, and read a lot of the local history, and walked the ground, and worked here in different capacities, ans had family members who worked in different functions on base, and I'm just a history nerd for military bases, particularly missile ranges like my base.

But that makes me an SME ONLY for archaeology and history, and just an interested party for many other aspects of activity here.

"A man's GOT to know his limitations…"

An expert cannot be self defined.

But so many of them are.

There is research that people who consider themselves to be "experts" tend to stop learning new things about their subject and simply refer to their own opinions for "proof."

An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.

Wolfhag

I actually worked for a while for an MD who testified in malpractice suits. Tennessee law distinguishes among levels of practice, so a rural doctor who sees a problem or does a procedure once a week is not held to the same standard as an urban doctor who sees it several times a day, or to a med school prof at Vanderbilt who TEACHES it. I had to use census data etc to show that my boss's practice was at a similar level to that of the accused doctor (.e.g. how many hospital beds in the county, various measures of communicable disease, etc.) So "expert" is very much circumstantial.