Some thoughts on experts and expertise by Alf Temme (www.OneManThinktank.com

"Guardians of the Status-Quo"
Why experts say "NO" to most new ideas

Experts have vast knowledge about all the good and bad ideas that have been studied in the past and that have become part of their body of expert knowledge and beliefs. Experts are indispensable for giving advice on ideas that have already been studied and classified by them as good or bad ideas. Those old and already studied ideas are the body of knowledge on which experts base their expertise. They reject most new ideas as false. The better the ideas are the farther they stray from the expert body of knowledge and the more likely they are ridiculed or ignored by experts. Mediocre ideas that do not stray too far from the expert knowledge and belief have the best chance of making it through the expert approval process of acceptance or rejection of new ideas.
 

Expert consultation

Over 90% of the time, experts are asked to give their opinion about ideas that are already part of their expert body of knowledge and only 10% of the time they are asked to pass judgment on brand new ideas . They will be able to give swift and accurate responses on questions about the 90% subject matter that they have already expertise on. The problem arises when they are expected to pass judgment on the 10% absolutely new ideas that they know little or nothing about and on which study would have to be done by them before giving their answer.

Experts know little or nothing about brand new ideas.

Experts, like everyone else, know little or nothing about the 10% of brand new and little studied or unstudied ideas. Yet, they are expected to pass judgment on those new ideas without having the benefit of knowledge about it. Surprisingly, most experts are more than willing to give swift answers to questions about new ideas they know little or nothing about. The better the new ideas are and also the worse the new ideas are, the more they stray from expert knowledge and beliefs and the more likely they are immediately dismissed by experts as nonsense. Inventors of very good ideas have to suffer this all the time. It takes them many extra years to be vindicated (if they have the stamina and are still alive).

The reasons often given by experts for their swift rejection of new ideas

The reasons experts give for why they reject most new ideas are hilarious for their illogical stupidity. Experts  start out by declaring "I am very open-minded, but . . . (beware of open-minded experts, they never are). Then follows a choice of favorites:  "If this new idea were true, then I as the expert, I would certainly know about it. " or "If this new idea were really true then all the experts in this field of knowledge would be wrong." or "If this new idea would be true, someone would have come up with this idea a long time ago and it certainly would have been implemented years ago." or my all time favorite "If this idea would be true, it would invalidate everything we know about . . . . (this body of expertise)." All these answers sound logical and apparently are very convincing to the general public, because experts keep getting away with this stupidity and new ideas do not get the attention and recognition they deserve. This of course safely dispatches the bad new ideas to the dustbin, but sadly it also sweeps the few good ideas away. It deprives the general public and the economy as a whole from the few good new ideas among the bunch.  In addition, experts seek to buttress their stupidity with a dose of ridicule that is generally delivered with an arrogant clownish smirk or grin on their face to underscore their lowly opinion of the new idea.

The correct logic that should be applied to new ideas

The glaring logic (apparently blindingly glaring) is that new ideas, good and bad ones, can only be new if they are different from what experts know and believe. It is then an absolutely illogical mistake to  dismiss new ideas as false, just because they differ from what experts know and believe. Unstudied and little studied ideas are most likely following Pareto's 80/20 principle in that they are 80% bad or useless and only 20% of them are ranging from useful to brilliant. This means statistically, that of the 10% brand new ideas that experts may be questioned about, 8% would be useless and only 2% may have some merit to them. If experts do not immediately mindlessly dismiss new ideas as nonsense, they use the same two very practical but totally illogical methods that normal mortals use to determine whether they like or dislike a new idea. First they compare the idea against their knowledge and beliefs and if the idea is in conflict with what they know and believe, they classify it as false. Second they might want to be fair, and to give the idea a second chance, they will consult other experts about the new idea to see what those experts think about it. The majority of other experts will come to the same conclusion based upon their giving it the same litmus test of comparing it against their knowledge and beliefs. It is the rare expert who will say: "Wait a minute here, I have never heard about this idea. I have no knowledge about it and I need some time to give it some serious thought, after which I will be able to give you a more reasoned and comprehensive answer."

Experts easily attain an impressive 98% right track record

Experts easily attain an impressive 98% track record of being correct. The 90% of questions they have knowledge about will be answered by them correctly. And by quickly dismissing the 10% of brand new ideas that they know nothing about as bad or useless, gives them another 8% correct answers (because 80% of new ideas are indeed most likely useless). But the remaining 2% good and brilliant ideas are then also dismissed as bad or useless and they would bite the dust for a few years or longer or forever (a loss for the economy and mankind). These experts look then statistically fantastic with a 98% track record of being right through simply dismissing anything new as false.

Experts are indispensable for a safe society

The reality is that without experts the World would be a much more dangerous place, because experts (and the general public) are risk-adverse, they  protect mankind from jumping too quickly onto brand new ideas, 80% of which are quite useless or plain dangerous. Experts generally say "NO" to everything that is not part of their body of expert knowledge and beliefs. Their automatic 98% track record of being right persuades them into the arrogant belief that they are near failsafe with their expertise knowledge and beliefs. It is totally false reasoning that they want to simply validate or invalidate ideas by testing them against their expert knowledge and beliefs. All things new and all new ideas must obviously be different from what experts know and believe in, else they would not be NEW. Mediocre new ideas that tend to stray little from established expert knowledge and beliefs are often only tinkering diversions from established ideas. The small tinkering diversions that do not stray far from already known and sanctioned expert knowledge are more acceptable to experts.

Masters of Minutia

A lot of these tweaked and tinkered details of old ideas are the creations of experts themselves who write papers and publish whole books on these minutia (publish or perish). Experts present their ideas during conferences and other gatherings of their colleagues. Those small tinkered minutia, whether right or wrong, are more easily accepted by the fraternity of experts because they come from a "trusted" source, namely other experts. Most members of the fraternity of experts do not deem these minutia worth their time to thoroughly study and critique and give them their nod of approval and applause during presentation of papers just because  that is the polite thing to do. This is the method by which a lot of drivel, passable, mediocre and outright bad ideas, sneak into the accepted body of expert knowledge and beliefs. When such drivel then blithely is referenced a few times in other papers and presentations by other "experts" it becomes gospel and taints all the research and "expert" advise by including this drivel and minutia myths in future work and study.

The source of brilliant new ideas

Brilliant new ideas will not likely sprout from the minds of mainstream experts. It will be a rare expert who will dare to oppose the whole fraternity of experts by declaring that everything they believe in is wrong and false and that it should all be swept aside in favor of bright new and simple ideas. There are a few such daring experts, but they are soon declared heretics and even lunatics and they swiftly lose all standing in their expert circles of their fraternity of "experts". Most really brilliant new ideas sprout from the minds of people with a reasonable level of intelligence who are not associated with a fraternity of experts nor are hamstrung by prevailing dogmas adhered to by those fraternities.

Experts deprive the World of the most brilliant new ideas

Experts are the ones called upon by most people to judge the validity of brilliant new ideas. Experts are also the least likely to give brilliant new ideas a chance because of their unbridled arrogance. As  a society we have no choice other than to defer  to experts for evaluating new ideas. Because brilliant new ideas stray the farthest from the cozy comfort of the accepted expert knowledge and beliefs, those brilliant ideas are the most likely ones to get the swift ax from experts and often are ridiculed with illogical expert arguments such as: "If this idea would be valid, it would invalidate everything there is known about this . . . (subject matter). It would invalidate everything Nobel Prize winning Professor so-and-so has to say about it and all University Studies from (a long list of Universities follows) and all books and papers written by Professor so-and-so (a long list of credentials follows)." The only hope for new brilliant ideas is to beg experts to set aside their understandable arrogance when judging ideas that are truly new and stray far from their comfortable expert body of belief and knowledge and that they set aside their self interest of preserving the status-quo. New ideas obviously change the expert body of knowledge and sometimes partially or even totally destroy and replace expert knowledge. That should not be a problem for an expert who does not mind having his expertise destroyed or diminished and replaced by worthwhile new insights. Those expert are rare indeed who do not mind to have their expertise temporarily diminished. Most experts will initially seek to swiftly destroy new ideas with false information and ridicule. Then if that did not destroy the new idea they will viciously attack it and if that does not kill the new idea they will adopt it and make as if they knew it to be a good idea all along and they try to associated it with their name. Funny, the way these things go.

In defense of experts

Experts should be excused for dismissing most new ideas as nonsense. Experts need to make a living too and knowledge and beliefs plus time are the "commodities" experts trade in.  Time is the fleeting commodity that must be used as effectively as possible to make use of their knowledge and beliefs. Triage is the "tool" used by all of us to allocating time in the most effective manner for tasks before us. For experts to deal with questions and ideas most effectively they should deal with the 90% old questions they know the answers to and they should routinely dismiss as untrue or useless all the remaining 10% of questions and ideas they do not know the answers to. Those 10% would require the vast majority of their time and place them in great jeopardy of being wrong and being wrong would diminish their stature as an expert. These 10% of swift dismissals are best dispatched with a dose of illogical ridicule to give the answers some foundation. Reasoned explanations for declaring the new ideas wrong would be more risky because those answers could be tested and found lacking. The additional incentive to dismiss all things new as wrong is that 80% of them are indeed wrong. Hesitating on giving a swift answer also diminishes the stature of an expert because it gives the impression of not knowing (the actual reality) and experts are expected to know, and not answering the questions right away diminishes their stature as knowing experts. The most arrogant experts that give the swiftest "NO" answers to all new ideas and those experts that ridicule the new ideas the most forcefully and pertinently, will attain the highest regard as highly respected experts in their field of expertise. Those are the "experts" that are the most frequently approached by the media for expert advice because they can function the best in the media envoronment of short sound-bites. TIME is the only asset we have in life and "experts" have learned to trade it for money in the most efficient way by having a swift answer to anything they know nothing about.

An observation about TIME
After our body and our health, TIME is our most important commodity, in fact TIME is gained and lost depending on the condition of our body and our health. Time is generally not appreciated as a commodity, but in reality it is the master commodity from which second and third tier commodities are derived. Time is the fleeting first tier commodity that can be converted into the vitally important second tier catalyst commodity of knowledge and the third tier commodities of goods and services. Time can also be converted into the non-fleeting and most readily convertible form of time, namely the seemingly all important money. Money is convertible into all other commodities including the purchase of time from other people. Unfortunately, money cannot be used very well to purchase more time on Earth for any individual. People are often willing to pay great amounts of money to just hang onto life for a few more days, weeks or months. The fleeting commodity of time is limited in quality and quantity to each person by their health and the condition of their body. Low health, both limits quality and quantity of time available to individuals. If you are interested in improving quality and quantity and gaining more of the commodity "TIME" then it might behoove you to have a look at www.FastExercise.com 

The following snippets were copied by me from Wikipedia: The links do not work