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Look up expert in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

An expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of knowledge, technique, or skill whose judgment is accorded authority and status by the public or their peers. Experts have prolonged or intense experience through practice and education in a particular field.

The opposite of an expert is generally known as a layperson, while someone who occupies a middle grade of understanding is generally known as a technician and often employed to assist experts. A person may well be an expert in one field and a layperson in many other fields. The concepts of experts and expertise are debated within the field of epistemology under the general heading of expert knowledge.

In specific fields, the definition of expert is well established by consensus and therefore it is not necessary for an individual to have a professional or academic qualification for them to be accepted as an expert. In this respect, a shepherd with 50 years of experience tending flocks would be widely recognized as having complete expertise in the use and training of sheep dogs and the care of sheep. Another example from computer science is that an expert system may be taught by a human and thereafter considered an expert, often outperforming human beings at particular tasks. In law, an expert witness must be recognized by argument and authority.

The term is widely used informally, with people being described as 'experts' in order to bolster the relative value of their opinion, when no objective criteria for their expertise is available. The term crank is likewise used to disparage opinions. Academic elitism arises when experts become convinced that only their opinion is useful, sometimes on matters beyond their personal expertise.

By a similar token, a fear of experts can arise from the fear of the power of an intellectual elite. In earlier periods of history, simply being able to read made one part of an intellectual elite with remarkable power and influence. The reformation could be attributed to higher literacy rates and the availability of printing, both of which made the knowledge of the religious elite less arcane, and more open to interpretation and debate.

Of course, an intellectual elite may or may not be correct about a particular issue in their field of expertise.

See also

• Anti-intellectualism

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