What does it mean to be an expert?

The computer vision is pretty fantastic for North American birds and a surprising number of moths and butterflies. It is fairly atrocious at fungi as far as I can tell -probably the reason it drives @henryy1355 crazy. But the more information we give CV the more it learns!

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Yes, I often feel like you say, it was so much easier in the 19th century. One of the difficult aspects of making a discovery is knowing when it really is a discovery. There is so much literature to check to be sure no one has already described it.

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I guess I donā€™t see this as a double-edged sword, so much as positive forward motion. Making analytical devices more portable and more accessible can only push science into more hands and into more remote locations. You canā€™t always take samples back with you from remote locations, and in many cases you wouldnā€™t want to. But it could help you understand an ecosystem if you could analyze/measure/document that organism, biome, or solution in its natural habitat.
For naturalists who may prefer to identify, but not dissect or remove a lifeform, more tools to enable this in the field would improve their understanding and identification.

In terms of youthful discoveries, I would frame this in the lens of history. It may feel like discovery was easier back then, but I am sure that in 150 years people will say the same thing about now. Currently you can still wander through remote areas (and not remote areas) and find new species. There are oceans of creatures we have yet to understand, document, or likely even imagine. And we are only just barely starting to suss the edges of bacterial diversity with genomic techniques that donā€™t require culturing.

Following on @jhbrattonā€™s comment above, iNaturalist can really help bring together the amateurs with the observations and the experts with the literature knowledge, in order to identify new discoveries. Some examples from a few years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/08/06/488830352/the-app-that-aims-to-gamify-biology-has-amateurs-discovering-new-species

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Heh. Like some others, I think of expertise as a differential between individuals with greater and lesser knowledge. I conduct local ā€œplant walksā€ as an amateur botanist, with graduate academic training though never employed for it. Iā€™ve found that being an expert is a matter of picking my audience. Even when Iā€™m fully confident of my topic, humility requires me to tell my plant walkers, ā€œtrust, but verifyā€. Thankfully, thereā€™s often someone with greater skill on hand to keep me honest!

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The problem is when the CV tries to do things like insects or plants where there are large numbers of similar looking things, gets started IDing things in the wrong family, and then those are reinforced when no one corrects them (as is often the case because there are few experts and they canā€™t always be IDed with certainty from photos like these). As an example, I found a new invasive planthopper recently and went to see if there were any other records outside its known range. All but one was false, though that one was itself apparently a new record.

This is a big reason I wish it would be a little stricter with geographic constraints, at least saying something like ā€œare you SURE this is it, because itā€™s not normally found in your areaā€.

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One definition Iā€™ve read: An expert is anybody giving a talk while 500+ miles from home.

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Nah, too many charlatans for that to be true.

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For the record, Iā€™ve often wondered what I could accomplish with a mass spectrometer in the basement, however.

I think an expert is someone who knows a lot about a subject, and is always trying to learn more about it.

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@odole Hmmmā€¦ Isnā€™t this just a one sided opinion. Do you have similar quotes for what the so called vandals are actually thinking and their reasoning behind certain actions.

@odole

  1. my mistake - the thread is about being an expert
  2. the definition of barbarian and more about that is off topic and much as it is of interest will not follow it up here.

So apologies
Ram_K

I came across this article from Forbes about the same question in a different context. The main correspondence with the iNat context concerns the subjectivity of the term. I like the distinction between expert and pundit.

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Just wanted to add @vladimir_onishko released the book Odonata of Russia just recently with another coauthor, and heā€™s a true expert with no doubts.
Didnā€™t expect that I have enough Pinales to even be shown. Though plant graph is full of known names for me.

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I think itā€™s useful and interesting to be making these kind of analyses, but I also believe iNat is what it is precisely because we donā€™t have a reputation system.

On the graphsā€¦ There are stronger outliers in the ā€œfor othersā€ side of the graphs that arenā€™t marked blue. Admittedly I only skim read the post, as Iā€™m on my way to work and plan to look at this closer laterā€¦

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The problem with ā€œindigenous ways of knowingā€, or for that matter of any folk-ways in any culture, even our own, is that they are useful and relevant to the culture within which they arose but they are not in any meaningful way scientifically valid. They do not tell us anything about taxonomy for example almost certainly very little about physiology or other important details. They should be considered, of course, but they cannot be compared as equivalent to or as valid as the scientific way of knowing.

I wonder if that is why the ā€œPermiesā€ forum run by Paul Wheaton is so against the concept of facts. I have gotten in trouble more than once there for referring to something as fact, or using the expression, ā€œthe fact of the matter isā€¦ā€ Once I took a stand on this very issue, asking loaded questions like, ā€œDo you believe that a day may come when a human can live a long, healthy life without oxygen?ā€ You should have seen the hailstorm of virtual apple cores raining down on me for that one!

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You define Indigenous knowledge as distinct from science and then conclude that Indigenous knowledge is not ā€œscientifically validā€. Your argument is both tautological in form and, because your assumption is false, false in fact. The scientific method is not incompatible with Indigenous knowledge systems.

The first written account of the scientific method is generally said to have been made by the Muslim scholar Hasan ibn Al-Haytham. a thousand or so years ago. Nobody who studies these things thinks that he was the only person to have figured it out and cultures around the globe have all had their systems for sorting meaningful information from rubbish. They have all also had competing information systems that thrive on superstition and falsehood, just as we do in modern cultures. Colonial narratives have typically emphasized the superstitions/pagan spirituality of colonized cultures to characterize them as heathen, backward and inferior, thereby justifying their subjugation. The trivialization of Indigenous knowledge systems is just one example of the smug presumptions that have been employed to justify the marginalization of colonized cultures.

Nobody expects Indigenous knowledge to inform electrical engineering but suggesting that the improbability of such an interface undermines the credibility of Indigenous knowledge systems is logically invalid (to paraphrase). Indigenous knowledge holders seek to be able to bring their knowledge to discussions about things that matter to them - land use, resource use, environmental quality, climate, etc., etc., etc. They have deep knowledge and much to contribute on many subjects. As has been demonstrated in places that actually bother to make the effort, bringing the Indigenous perspective to the table is much more productive than demeaning its value.

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Oops, I accidentally deleted this ā€“ how do I get it back again?

I fixed it.

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Many thanks!