> Most PhDs are incredibly specific and don’t necessary indicate broad knowledge of a field as a whole
> Which is why you should be wary of “experts” making overly broad claims about topics within their field but far outside their area of expertise.
I mostly agree, but also I think it depends on how strong you are suggesting this and if you also acknowledge that there is high variance between domains as to the variance within the distribution of knowledge. Your last sentence is where I really disagree. There is a big difference.
But I think for the general person, there's 2 things of note: 1) just because you should be wary of an expert talking outside their niche (but inside their broader domain), doesn't mean that their opinion is equal to that of a layman. I'd still trust the mostly-expert over the non-expert any day. The true-expert is often very hard to find tbh. Look for nuance and you'll increase the likelihood of finding the expert. 2) It is easy to confuse expert talk with arrogance or pretentiousness. It is also easy to be that way when talking to a layman as the nature of those conversations will never be between peers, but more akin to a teacher and student. The two parties are not equal, but we're primed to treat any non-academic setting conversation as if we are. The experts often have serious doubts and are far more self-conscious than they appear. You just won't see that unless you're a peer and can speak the language, because experts are also specifically taught to defend their work and speak with confidence. Your hint is how they respond to critiques from other experts (but that's not easy to do accurately as there's probably a lot of nuance you aren't seeing and they are speaking a different language even if you understand all the words).
Everyone should always be skeptical though. That's for certain. But I just want to make sure we don't turn knowledge into a binary setting: expert vs idiot. There's a lot in-between and that matters a lot.
> I'd still trust the mostly-expert over the non-expert any day. The true-expert is often very hard to find tbh.
Right, you can always find somebody more expert than someone else. The level of specificity that some people expect for a variety of problems will leave only a dozen or so people in the world who can call themselves experts.
> Which is why you should be wary of “experts” making overly broad claims about topics within their field but far outside their area of expertise.
I mostly agree, but also I think it depends on how strong you are suggesting this and if you also acknowledge that there is high variance between domains as to the variance within the distribution of knowledge. Your last sentence is where I really disagree. There is a big difference.
But I think for the general person, there's 2 things of note: 1) just because you should be wary of an expert talking outside their niche (but inside their broader domain), doesn't mean that their opinion is equal to that of a layman. I'd still trust the mostly-expert over the non-expert any day. The true-expert is often very hard to find tbh. Look for nuance and you'll increase the likelihood of finding the expert. 2) It is easy to confuse expert talk with arrogance or pretentiousness. It is also easy to be that way when talking to a layman as the nature of those conversations will never be between peers, but more akin to a teacher and student. The two parties are not equal, but we're primed to treat any non-academic setting conversation as if we are. The experts often have serious doubts and are far more self-conscious than they appear. You just won't see that unless you're a peer and can speak the language, because experts are also specifically taught to defend their work and speak with confidence. Your hint is how they respond to critiques from other experts (but that's not easy to do accurately as there's probably a lot of nuance you aren't seeing and they are speaking a different language even if you understand all the words).
Everyone should always be skeptical though. That's for certain. But I just want to make sure we don't turn knowledge into a binary setting: expert vs idiot. There's a lot in-between and that matters a lot.