There are people who proclaim themselves as experts. But how does one become a perceived an expert? Having a lot of information on a subject does not make an expert. A text book has a lot of knowledge but that text book will not answer a question without someone looking in it and it needs an ‘expert’ to write it. So, writing on a subject sometimes becomes the touchstone of the expert.
In medicine and science experts often write and publish articles in journals. These articles are reviewed by other ‘experts’ before the journal publishes them. So their publication implies that ‘experts’ agree that the author is well versed in that subject.
For inventors the litmus test often used as a gauge is patents. A patent is issued by a government that says that other ‘experts’ have reviewed it and agree that it is new and important enough to have a patent issued. The invention even gets a birthday and a life span where it can be owned and used by the inventor.
What about books? Books are publications written by people who may be considered experts or self proclaimed experts. In the examples of journals or patents independent ‘experts’ have examined what is written and concluded that the author has demonstrated expertise. This so called peer review is rigorous but is distinctly lacking with many books that are published by so called experts. I have written several books, but for the sake of example, lets examine two of them. One book entitled, Creatine and Creatine Phosphate is a scientific text reviewed by my peers and considered a solid reference on the subject of creatine. I consider myself an expert on creatine and patents and other publications are added evidence for that claim. Another book I wrote is, My Ambulance Education. I worked on an ambulance and in the book conveyed how that impacted me personally and professionally. It is one person’s perspective, so I do not consider myself an expert on ambulances or educating ambulance personnel. The two books are linked, however, in that the ambulance work helped pay for me as I was in college learning about creatine.
I recently encountered a self describe expert, who will remain nameless. This person is in the medical field and has a degree. He claims hundreds of inventions and has published several books. But, when I closely examined the literature and credentials for this person he had no patents and no publications or texts that have undergone peer review. I found no experts who consider him an expert. I concluded he is not an expert in anything except self promotion.
If you ever encounter a self describe expert you can check their validity with some simple searches on the internet. Do not use google for this. Try: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez for science and medicine and http://patft.uspto.gov/ for patents and inventions. They are both free. There you will find the real experts.