Expert vs. non-expert?

I just completed a road trip to and from Colorado by myself — giving me nearly 20 hours of prime selfish podcast listening. I spent most of the precious time on science and philosophy podcasts and the experience drew me back to a draft of this post I started last month.

False dichotomies. They seem so natural that we rarely question them — until we become so painfully aware that they are impossible to ignore. My sensitivity to false, or artificial, dichotomies is rooted in their overuse and abuse in interpretation of statistical results in science. I saw it, felt it, and fought against it on a daily basis for nearly twenty years. Dichotomies have a comforting simplicity to them. A simplicity that blinds us to recognizing them as artificial, much less a sort of problem we need to deal with.

The one motivating this post — a person is either an expert or not an expert — is one that I was blind to until rather recently, so I have found it very useful to reflect on. And, I am well aware that I am blind to many others — I just wish I knew what they were. The reflection gives me empathy for those who simply to do not see the false dichotomies running through our use of statistical results in science. We just don’t know enough to know what we don’t know. Or, we aren’t aware enough to know what we aren’t aware of.

So, let’s dig shallowly into this expert vs. non-expert dichotomy — just to get us thinking. Journalism relies on expertise, and expertise is often communicated to the audience through people labeled as experts. This implies that somewhere in time a person moves from the bucket containing the non-experts to the bucket containing the experts. It’s not clear when or how one gets dumped, or climbs, from the non-expert bucket into the expert bucket. Does my bucket labeled Experts on a specific topic contain the same people you would put in your Expert bucket? Well, the overlap in our bucket compositions probably depends on our levels of expertise on the topic. If we are both equally ignorant and generally share views on the topic, then maybe we can agree on who should end up in the expert bucket (after some discussion of criteria). But, if you are incredibly knowledgeable on a topic that I am not, then our buckets are likely going to differ dramatically. This bucket picture has no acknowledgement of the continuum of expertise or the arbitrariness and subjectivity inherent in the split.

Do we need the expert label? What purpose does it really serve?

Luckily, the announcement in journalism that the person interviewed is “an expert” is typically accompanied by a description of their qualifications on the topic. This is usually a resume or CV type list of education and accomplishments. This list, even if superficial on some level, is the information we need. Based on it, we can weigh our trust in what the person has to say and the amount of influence we might let it have over our own thinking — that is, we can weigh how seriously to consider it relative to our own knowledge and experiences. The label of expert does not need to be overlaid on the statement of qualifications; it detracts from encouraging the audience from making their own judgment about the trustworthiness of information conveyed.

Even if you agree the label is probably not needed, you might be asking — but does it really matter? Is there any harm done? Is it a habit that’s worth breaking? I do think there is harm done to trust in journalism, and science journalism in particular.

Consider a person in the audience with little knowledge on the subject — hearing the interviewee labeled as “an expert” is likely what they hear loudest, and it’s used to justify not spending much energy evaluating the person’s specific qualifications. It comes across as if the journalist is saying “you should trust me that you should trust this person,” rather than encouraging the audience to critically evaluate the situation on their own. The labeling of “expert” adds an extra psychological layer — to critically evaluate the situation, the audience has to have experience some distrust in the journalist who just declared the person “an expert”. Leaving off the label of expert and simply presenting the person’s qualifications avoids unnecessary complications of human psychology and encourages critical thinking.

Now, let’s go to the other side of the expertise spectrum. Suppose a person in the audience has a deep knowledge of a subject and hears a journalist label a person as an expert on the topic. Because it is an area the audience member has their own expertise in, the label may put the audience member into hyper-critical mode, particularly if they find the expert leaves out or misrepresents important information or views (which I argue is often how a person with great expertise feels when they hear someone else talk about their area of expertise). This feeling leads to unnecessary frustration and a feeling of distrust in the journalist who assigned the label of expert. This elicits stronger and different feelings relative to trust than if the interviewee’s qualifications were simply described as they exist. There is really no need for the journalist to declare a person an expert — all they have to do is provide the qualifications and reasons why they chose to interview them and let the reader/listener judge for themselves.

So, what is the goal of going the extra step to label a person as an expert? I really can’t think of a good reason — except… how good it feels when we are the one labeled as “the expert”.

Could curbing our use of the label help maintain or build public trust in science journalism? Maybe I’m reaching here, but I think it’s a small and doable thing that, when combined with other small things, can make a difference.