Re:The Death Of Expertise
by na85 on Saturday January 18, 2014 @06:55PM
(#7082801)
>I agree that Schneier is clearly an expert; it's the way you've reached that conclusion which I disagree with, as it could easily lead you to the wrong answer in any case where celebrity and actual expertise are not so happily aligned.
I fail to see how; it's exceedingly rare to find true experts who haven't got publications of one sort or another to their name.
>Well, there was this at the bottom of the article: "Tom Nichols is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct at the Harvard Extension School." Anybody interested in evaluating or expanding upon these credentials could do so with (not to be trite) a quick Google search.
Well again, maybe he is an expert and merely a lousy writer. But none of this contradicts my point that his article's central premise (being an expert) needs to be clearly supported. That's like first-year undergraduate essay writing 101.
>Your mistake is to look for demonstrations of expertise in the form of Google rank and other manifestations of popularity. That's not what actual demonstration of expertise looks like.
Your mistake is interpreting what I wrote as conflating popularity with expertise. For the third time: I didn't choose Schneier as an example because he was popular. I stated outright my google search was cursory. You're missing the point.
I fail to see how; it's exceedingly rare to find true experts who haven't got publications of one sort or another to their name.
>Well, there was this at the bottom of the article: "Tom Nichols is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct at the Harvard Extension School." Anybody interested in evaluating or expanding upon these credentials could do so with (not to be trite) a quick Google search.
Well again, maybe he is an expert and merely a lousy writer. But none of this contradicts my point that his article's central premise (being an expert) needs to be clearly supported. That's like first-year undergraduate essay writing 101.
>Your mistake is to look for demonstrations of expertise in the form of Google rank and other manifestations of popularity. That's not what actual demonstration of expertise looks like.
Your mistake is interpreting what I wrote as conflating popularity with expertise. For the third time: I didn't choose Schneier as an example because he was popular. I stated outright my google search was cursory. You're missing the point.