I have seen various “experts” (according to your definition - people who have academic degrees and papers published in a field) provide nonsensical/ill-informed identifications, or blatantly false statements. Experts are not omniscient, flawless gods who have perfect knowledge of the whole of nature worlwide and have infinite time to read the whole international literature on a topic.
I’d go as far as saying that diagnostic features of an expert are an inflated head, and wildly erratic behaviour when caught at the outskirts of their native area. :)
Democracy for all its flaws is no worse than aristocracy, noocracy and other tyrannies of the ‘self-appointed select few’…