Trego's Mountain Ear

I’ve been reading of how the credibility of experts is declining – and it comes as no surprise. I’ve spent a lot of my life as an expert, dealing with other experts – and I’ve found that a lot of the experts I encounter aren’t. Let’s look at what it takes to be an expert: I’m a demographer. I have the training. I’ve held the title. I know what it takes – I ‘m well informed on three topics – birth, death and migration. Still, Paul Ehrlich is better known as a demographer than I – and he studied butterflies. And turned his ignorance of demography into a best selling book called The Population Bomb.

Here’s the deal – I know the interaction between birth, death and migration. Paul doesn’t – but he has sold more books. Because he has sold so many books, he’s an expert. Since he doesn’t know the topic, he is frequently wrong. Since he is frequently wrong, he contributes to the public’s lack of trust in experts. His demography is called Malthusian – and the Reverend Thomas Malthus made sense in 1798. But the Industrial Revolution came along, followed by the development of industrial agriculture, and Malthus theories have been out of step with reality for about 300 years.

There are two specific areas where I have demonstrated my expertise in demography – Hutterite outmigration and Reservations. I’m not just a demographer, I’m a rural demographer. And my specific areas of expertise include the Dakota/Lakota people and the Dariusleut Hutterites. Frankly, not many people give a damn about Reservation demographics or Hutterite outmigration. Not a problem – its just a matter of focusing on the topics where my expertise is. Paul’s area of expertise – butterflies – doesn’t support his conclusions – so he reduces the credibility of the actual experts.

Another graduate got her Ph.D. in psychology, and wanted to diagnose Trump as having a narcissistic personality disorder. Not bad – but when I asked about Frances (Allen Frances edited the journals about personality disorders) she sex changed him to female. I got her recommendation that if I wanted to learn about personality disorders, I should read he dissertation.

Here’s the deal: the dissertation is the project that shows you are capable of doing original research while supervised. It is not expected to be one’s finest work – for example, Einstein’s dissertation was on using Brownian motion to determine an approximation of Avogadro’s number. It wasn’t his finest work – within a couple of years, his technique ceased to be used, because another, better technique gave the actual number. Einstein went on to greater discoveries. The second thing is that if you’re not keeping up with the journal articles, your expertise isn’t current. She believed that her dissertation completion made her an expert. Completing a Ph.D. doesn’t make you an expert – it recognizes that you are capable of performing original research under limited supervision.

So we have more people claiming to be experts on increasingly large topics. And we’re surprised at a declining belief in the credibility of those experts?