I am a member of both these lists (in the To: header) and by
coincidence both are currently engaging in intensive navel-gazing.
Participants in either debate may therefore be interested to review the
archives of the other.

It seems to me that many of the arguments centre on conflating the
internal, client and lay perceptions of an expert, or the informal, formal
or legal definitions.

These are not trivial points.  In response to a current (but long drawn
out) case, the Royal Statistical Society tried to raise with the Lord
Chancellor's office (head of the UK judiciary) exactly the question of how
a statistical expert witness should be recognised.  The response was that
there were no specific professional criteria that the LC thought should be
applied, and in each case it should be left to the discretion of the
court.  One aspect of the background that particularly concerned me was
that the Appeal Court ruled (it's in the written judgment) that if the
defence counsel had objected to the expertise of the [now discredited]
witness, he could have challenged the evidence as "lies, damned lies and
statistics."

On the other hand, the wider questions do relate to perceptions rather
than any idealistic state.  As such, attempts at fixed definitions are
doomed to fail, since perceptions are formed from the experiences of
society as a whole.  Part of the motivation for the debates may be the
*perception* brought about by managerialism that progress is achieved by
setting explicit targets and direct exhortation to change.

Both debates also implicitly involve the quality of communication skills:
the person claiming to be an Xpert (an expert in X) has to convince a
potential client through demonstration of qualifications or a portfolio of
success.  The client has to understand *enough* to be impressed, but not
necessarily more. Pursuing the distinction of formal or legal
qualifications, medical doctors were for many years able to neglect their
communication skills because the patients were impressed by the
professional establishment and felt powerless to question or shop around;
architects were similarly legally protected but had to compete for briefs
by persuading clients; designers (wide sense) and data analysts both start
from a disadvantages that potential clients do not know what they will
gain from the collaboration and in particular may not expect a gain that
will be value for money.

How do you qualify in communication skills?  One question in the debate
has been how to qualify as a writer.  This was addressed directly in my
thesis on Writing and IT, as my justification for writing on the topic:

"...  how does one qualify as a writer? There is little evidence that
studying literature of itself makes students into better writers as judged
by discriminating readers, and the only worthwhile criterion for a writer
is to be complemented by a reader *apart from your parents or teacher*.
Training in writing mainly consists of writing and being criticized -
until you find success. On that basis, I can claim a C.V. of writing for
and editing newsletters over more than twenty years: for the university
computing service, for software user groups and for a succession of
professional bodies. I have had several short articles published
elsewhere, received spontaneous favourable reviews of strictly academic
publications and a trickle of `fan mail'."


R. Allan Reese                       Email: [log in to unmask]