Understanding Expertise

How can anyone tell who really has the expertise that they need? What is this thing called expertise that they are looking for anyway? A definition of the term expertise seems obvious enough. Expertise is what someone knows that others do not. It reflects a specialty, such as microbiology, astrophysics, law, or nursing. One could also count among areas of expertise more mundane items, such as plumbing, painting, the ability to direct someone to the right aisle in a supermarket, or being able to identify what song is playing on the radio. In science communication, expertise takes on a critical role in that the science communicator needs to make a scientist's expertise available, understandable, and useful for nonexperts.

People want to call on a scientist's expertise to aid a decision that involves some sort of scientific or technical information that they are not themselves knowledgeable or confident about. For [Page 922]example, which cancer treatment would give the greatest prospect for survival and best quality of life for an ageing relative? Or, for someone in government, what is a suitable limit for carbon dioxide emissions?

Studies of decision making indicate that people turn to experts when they are not sure that they will make a good choice based on what they already know. As a result, people would like someone knowledgeable to recommend what to do. Put another way, when faced with uncertainty, people look for a voice of authority.

The etymology of the word expertise reinforces this notion. The term expertise shares a common root in Latin with the words “expert,” “experience,” and “experiment.” The root “exper” has the syllable “ex,” meaning “without,” and the syllable “per,” which is said to derive from the word “peril.” So, “expertise” can be recognized as having something to do with avoiding (or recognizing) peril.

When someone faces a decision and is worried about making a mistake, they turn to others who are less likely to make a mistake than they are. This simple statement was offered by a famous sociologist, Everett Hughes, in his well-known 1951 essay, “Mistakes at Work.” His perspective aligns well with studies of how a range of societies have developed decision-making processes to determine who should be held responsible for making a mistake. This process of assigning blame is known as the “allocation of responsibility.” The allocation of responsibility occurs in the courtroom. A judge and jury determine who is to blame for a crime. Blame also arises in science-based decisions, such as in a search for why a hospital patient died or why a spacecraft exploded. One can conclude that an attempt to avoid blame causes people to search for and consult someone with expertise.

How do people know which expert to turn to? People do not walk around with an encyclopedia of their knowledge in tow that can be compared to some universal encyclopedia to check their answers and opinions. Think about the times when someone has had some expert insight and others have refused to listen. What could have been done to prove that the person really knew what he or she was talking about without relying on simplistic assumptions about who has expertise? From the nonexpert's perspective, how can one tell which expert seems to have the relevant expertise and the appropriate level of knowledge to establish that they know more than the nonexpert does? Asking a nonexpert to test an expert is as difficult as asking a student to test a teacher. Someone can (sometimes) catch an expert's mistakes or identify the limits to their expertise, but can anyone do so generally?

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