The expert and the non-experts

This is a good and funny video about the position an expert often find him- or herself in. I must say it has quite a bit of resemblance to my experience of talking with, among others, believers in new age and pseudoscience.

To become an expert

This Wednesday I happened to pass by a room where a lecture was held. I will not divulge who was talking to whom. Partly because I want to protect the innocent and partly because I don't know. What I did notice was that the woman giving the lecture just had one slide. At least all the times I was looking there was the same slide projected. Instead she used the white board to write some things and draw some curves.
What was important enough to be projected on the screen all the time was her name and that she had a diploma from some place and was certified by someone.
Perhaps I am beginning to be cynical but for me “certified” more and more mean “had-someone-print-a-page-whit-my-name-on-it”. Becoming an expert seems to be easy today, either just say that you are or pay someone else to say it for you.
I certainly don't know that the person I saw was a fake expert, I just get suspicious with people that point to their credentials in that way. A real expert should be able to show that they know their topic by talking about the topic.