[wesleyd]

To this I would add: Not everyone who claims not to be an expert ... isn't.

As you practice a craft, you build up positive knowledge - what works. And you build up negative knowledge - what doesn't work. But you also build up humility; the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know.

Knowledge increases sub-linearly, assuming a modicum of curiosity, but humility is like a parabola. The "experts" of this article are those at the bottom of the humility parabola. They have quite a bit of positive knowledge, some negative knowledge, but they don't really know yet what they don't know.

_Many "experts" don't consider themselves experts._ They all too often say "Hmm, interesting question, I don't know, but...". They are defined by humility and curiosity.

Imagine the question "Why is the sky blue?". Somebody who has just finished an undergraduate degree in theoretical physics and happens to have learnt learnt about Rayleigh scattering will sound much more like an expert than somebody who says "Hmm, interesting question, I don't know, but..." and then spends fifteen minutes figuring it out on the spot.

Like the phenomenon of the newish driver: nobody seems more of an expert driver than somebody who passed their test three months ago. They have learnt all the rules, they think they know everything, they often don't have much curiosity, and they have yet to learn humility.

Of course, this often doesn't matter. Many people don't want an actual expert - they want somebody who sounds like an expert _to other people_. Oracle don't advertise to people who buy software. They advertise to the people who second guess the people who buy software.

To quote a wonderful ex-co-worker, "Most people need a generalist. But they want - and are willing to pay for - a specialist."