What makes a "Expert"

[Dieseljockey]

The dictionary states....

1. A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.
2. A person who has extensive skill or knowledge in a particular field.

The reason I ask is, I start work around 4am and as soon as I'm in my truck the radio is on and I listen to Radio 4 for the first 2 or 3 hours. Now when all the troubles started in Greece months back, you had an "Expert" say "Greece will leave the Euro in days if not a week, and then the EU. Then we have another "Expert" say "Greece cannot leave the Eurozone as the whole thing will come tumbling down". Which one is correct???

It's the same if you listen to J Vine on radio 2 after 12 noon, he has "Experts" on about what's going on in Westminster. We have George Osborne telling us that we have to tighten our belts, and pay more for this & that. Then another "Expert" saying he's got it all wrong and we should be doing the opposite... :twisted: Who's correct???

Then you have the new High Speed Rail link, one "Expert" this, another "Expert" that. I know "Experts" have been around since Adam was a boy, and that won't change. It rubs me up the wrong way when your told one thing, only to be told another later.

No worries Rant over..... :lol:

 

[graysalchemy]

Don't the goverment have 'experts ' advising them. :lol: :lol:

Or was that Murdock :lol: :lol:

 

[calumscott]

Best definition I ever heard:

Expert: one who knows more and more about less and less to the point where they know everything there is to know about f**k all.

 

[Dieseljockey]

Don't the goverment have 'experts ' advising them. :lol: :lol:

Or was that Murdock :lol: :lol:

Watch out they'll have you down the Leveson inquiry. :rofl:

 

[Aleman]

Ex is a has been and a spert is a drip under pressure

 

[graysalchemy]

Best definition I ever heard:

Expert: one who knows more and more about less and less to the point where they know everything there is to know about f**k all.

:rofl: :rofl:

 

[Andyhull]

Ex is a has been and a spert is a drip under pressure

Bang on there

 

[TheMumbler]

...one "Expert" this, another "Expert" that. I know "Experts" have been around since Adam was a boy, and that won't change. It rubs me up the wrong way when your told one thing, only to be told another later./quote]

Seriously?

Do you consider yourself to know a decent amount about anything? Homebrewing beer for example.
Have you ever found that you made a mistake when doing that thing?
Have you ever had another person who also knows a lot about that thing disagree with you?
Do you think that there can be more than one solution to a problem?

You seem to be confusing "expert" with infallible or omniscient. The finanacial crisis and the Eurozone are (as far as I can make out) pretty complicated issues. Are you really surprised that not everybody agrees on what will happen if various different things are tried?

If you got Alex Fergusson, Harry Redknapp and Jose Mourinho in a room and asked them to predict the result of every match from qualification to the final in the next world cup. Would you expect that they would agree on everything? Would you expect that any one of them would get every result right?

 

[Dieseljockey]

Ex is a has been and a spert is a drip under pressure

:lol: You have it in a nutshell there... :clap:

 

[Dieseljockey]

TheMumbler....it was a rhetorical question, it was just me having a rant that's all.... :whistle: sorry... :lol:

 

[TheMumbler]

absolutely no need to apologise, just having a little rant of my own :)

 

[ScottM]

Is that not when you send something you have made out of the country of origin?

 

[narmour]

...one "Expert" this, another "Expert" that. I know "Experts" have been around since Adam was a boy, and that won't change. It rubs me up the wrong way when your told one thing, only to be told another later./quote]

Seriously?

Do you consider yourself to know a decent amount about anything? Homebrewing beer for example.
Have you ever found that you made a mistake when doing that thing?
Have you ever had another person who also knows a lot about that thing disagree with you?
Do you think that there can be more than one solution to a problem?

You seem to be confusing "expert" with infallible or omniscient. The finanacial crisis and the Eurozone are (as far as I can make out) pretty complicated issues. Are you really surprised that not everybody agrees on what will happen if various different things are tried?

If you got Alex Fergusson, Harry Redknapp and Jose Mourinho in a room and asked them to predict the result of every match from qualification to the final in the next world cup. Would you expect that they would agree on everything? Would you expect that any one of them would get every result right?

The problem starts to become a little sinister when the "experts" have a vested interest. For example, the housing 'boom and bust' of the last decade. All through the good times we had industry 'experts' ie. estate agents telling us that house prices were going up and up with no end in sight, the whole thing was sustainable and their 'professional opinion' had nothing to do with the fact that they were pocketing 3% of every rediculously inflated sale they made. Even when the market got twitchy and people began to realise that there was going to be an inevitable crash, the 'experts' came out and lied through their teeth, whether through blatant dishonesty or misplaced blind faith and desperation, trying to sustain the good times they had got so used to. Those down payments on the Porsche don't pay themselves you know.

Now here's a thought. And hear me out, cause that's all this is, my thoughts. Perhaps the 'experts' with their opinions just aren't ready to face the fact that the whole Eurozone idea, and even more radically, the current model of capitalism just don't work and there needs to be a radical change before everything falls down around us. But they are too comfortable with how the model should have worked, and can't let go, so, instead of closing up tax loopholes for big corporations and recouping billions of pounds / euro lost to these rediculous tax schemes (this costs the British exchequer £18.5 BILLION every year in lost revenue, whereas benefit fraud costs £3.1 billion), they target the working men and women of the UK and Europe and their pockets in a desperate attempt to save their champagne lifestyle. And so again, we have 'experts' with a vested interest in their area of expertise, and so the whole nasty little roundabout goes round and round.

Or something like that.

 

[oldstout]

The pedant in me says it's an expert........... :whistle:


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

:

 

[TheMumbler]

The problem starts to become a little sinister when the "experts" have a vested interest. For example, the housing 'boom and bust' of the last decade. All through the good times we had industry 'experts' ie. estate agents telling us that house prices were going up and up with no end in sight, the whole thing was sustainable and their 'professional opinion' had nothing to do with the fact that they were pocketing 3% of every rediculously inflated sale they made. Even when the market got twitchy and people began to realise that there was going to be an inevitable crash, the 'experts' came out and lied through their teeth, whether through blatant dishonesty or misplaced blind faith and desperation, trying to sustain the good times they had got so used to. Those down payments on the Porsche don't pay themselves you know.

Now here's a thought. And hear me out, cause that's all this is, my thoughts. Perhaps the 'experts' with their opinions just aren't ready to face the fact that the whole Eurozone idea, and even more radically, the current model of capitalism just don't work and there needs to be a radical change before everything falls down around us. But they are too comfortable with how the model should have worked, and can't let go, so, instead of closing up tax loopholes for big corporations and recouping billions of pounds / euro lost to these rediculous tax schemes (this costs the British exchequer £18.5 BILLION every year in lost revenue, whereas benefit fraud costs £3.1 billion), they target the working men and women of the UK and Europe and their pockets in a desperate attempt to save their champagne lifestyle. And so again, we have 'experts' with a vested interest in their area of expertise, and so the whole nasty little roundabout goes round and round.

Or something like that.

The problems that you are describing are not due to relying on expertise. Conflicts of interest are a well known problem, however corruption and selfishness are not unique to experts.

 

[Titch]

me and my dad have always wondered how to become and expert in something

i mean a person comes on the news an "expert" in dinosaur eggs for example

the thing is we can never question what he tells us as true or not as there all sodding dead

"expert" in extinct animals............ yes they can dig things up read books but we can never truly know if they speak the truth or not

so i want to be an "expert"

thats feels better to know im not the only one in the world who thinks like this

 

[narmour]

The problem starts to become a little sinister when the "experts" have a vested interest. For example, the housing 'boom and bust' of the last decade. All through the good times we had industry 'experts' ie. estate agents telling us that house prices were going up and up with no end in sight, the whole thing was sustainable and their 'professional opinion' had nothing to do with the fact that they were pocketing 3% of every rediculously inflated sale they made. Even when the market got twitchy and people began to realise that there was going to be an inevitable crash, the 'experts' came out and lied through their teeth, whether through blatant dishonesty or misplaced blind faith and desperation, trying to sustain the good times they had got so used to. Those down payments on the Porsche don't pay themselves you know.

Now here's a thought. And hear me out, cause that's all this is, my thoughts. Perhaps the 'experts' with their opinions just aren't ready to face the fact that the whole Eurozone idea, and even more radically, the current model of capitalism just don't work and there needs to be a radical change before everything falls down around us. But they are too comfortable with how the model should have worked, and can't let go, so, instead of closing up tax loopholes for big corporations and recouping billions of pounds / euro lost to these rediculous tax schemes (this costs the British exchequer £18.5 BILLION every year in lost revenue, whereas benefit fraud costs £3.1 billion), they target the working men and women of the UK and Europe and their pockets in a desperate attempt to save their champagne lifestyle. And so again, we have 'experts' with a vested interest in their area of expertise, and so the whole nasty little roundabout goes round and round.

Or something like that.

The problems that you are describing are not due to relying on expertise. Conflicts of interest are a well known problem, however corruption and selfishness are not unique to experts.

I disagree. Whenever an issue like the economic downturn rears it's head, it is these experts that we turn to. The housing 'experts' that urged us to carry on buying at inflated prices caused many to have faith and end up losing thousands of pounds. Those people relied on 'expert' opinion, and ultimately got stung. Personally, I went to see a financial advisor when I first started house hunting in 2007. I was earning £14,000 a year, on a fixed term contract with a fairly small deposit. He told me that he could get me an £80,000 mortgage and not to worry about little details like the fact I might be out of work in a year's time. I'm glad I was smart enough to realise that he doesn't care what happens to me after I leave his office, he gets a percentage commission on every mortgage he secures and all he cares about is his slice. If I had of listened to him (and judging by the Mercedes he was driving many did listen) I would have been at the sharp end of a repossession or worse by now as I went through 2 years of unemployment after that. That's the reason we have experts, so we don't have to think for ourselves.

You are absolutely right of course about the corrupt and selfish among us not being confined to experts, although you will find that many of these corrupt individuals will have their own 'pet' experts who back up their claims with pseudo science or just plain bullsh*t.

 

[TheMumbler]

I still think what you a describing is a problem of a conflict of interest and avarice, not expertise. Beyond that, as I said above, expertise does not mean that that person will always be right or act in an ethical or moral fashion. Claiming to be an expert doesn't make you one.

Taking the time to be as informed as you can and think things through is often going to be a good idea but it just isn't possible to know a lot about everything. There aren't the hours in the day. Considering what the other party has to gain in any transaction is good practice IMO.

 

[pittsy]

The problem starts to become a little sinister when the "experts" have a vested interest. For example, the housing 'boom and bust' of the last decade. All through the good times we had industry 'experts' ie. estate agents telling us that house prices were going up and up with no end in sight, the whole thing was sustainable and their 'professional opinion' had nothing to do with the fact that they were pocketing 3% of every rediculously inflated sale they made. Even when the market got twitchy and people began to realise that there was going to be an inevitable crash, the 'experts' came out and lied through their teeth, whether through blatant dishonesty or misplaced blind faith and desperation, trying to sustain the good times they had got so used to. Those down payments on the Porsche don't pay themselves you know.

Now here's a thought. And hear me out, cause that's all this is, my thoughts. Perhaps the 'experts' with their opinions just aren't ready to face the fact that the whole Eurozone idea, and even more radically, the current model of capitalism just don't work and there needs to be a radical change before everything falls down around us. But they are too comfortable with how the model should have worked, and can't let go, so, instead of closing up tax loopholes for big corporations and recouping billions of pounds / euro lost to these rediculous tax schemes (this costs the British exchequer £18.5 BILLION every year in lost revenue, whereas benefit fraud costs £3.1 billion), they target the working men and women of the UK and Europe and their pockets in a desperate attempt to save their champagne lifestyle. And so again, we have 'experts' with a vested interest in their area of expertise, and so the whole nasty little roundabout goes round and round.

Or something like that.

The problems that you are describing are not due to relying on expertise. Conflicts of interest are a well known problem, however corruption and selfishness are not unique to experts.

I disagree. Whenever an issue like the economic downturn rears it's head, it is these experts that we turn to. The housing 'experts' that urged us to carry on buying at inflated prices caused many to have faith and end up losing thousands of pounds. Those people relied on 'expert' opinion, and ultimately got stung. Personally, I went to see a financial advisor when I first started house hunting in 2007. I was earning £14,000 a year, on a fixed term contract with a fairly small deposit. He told me that he could get me an £80,000 mortgage and not to worry about little details like the fact I might be out of work in a year's time. I'm glad I was smart enough to realise that he doesn't care what happens to me after I leave his office, he gets a percentage commission on every mortgage he secures and all he cares about is his slice. If I had of listened to him (and judging by the Mercedes he was driving many did listen) I would have been at the sharp end of a repossession or worse by now as I went through 2 years of unemployment after that. That's the reason we have experts, so we don't have to think for ourselves.

You are absolutely right of course about the corrupt and selfish among us not being confined to experts, although you will find that many of these corrupt individuals will have their own 'pet' experts who back up their claims with pseudo science or just plain bullsh*t.

I'm with you on this , you'll need to go a long way to find people who have high wage jobs give a sh*t about others and they often claim to be experts , yes but experts in ripping folk off for there own greedy means

 

[Triker]

An expert lacks one vital chain of thought..."if it aint broke dont mend it"

What they tend to do with something that 'aint broke' is "mend it until it is"!