Does an advanced degree make someone an expert? Sometimes. It should seem obvious that it depends on what the degree is in, what school conferred the degree, how much current research the expert is doing, and a handful of other factors. For example, someone with a PhD in biology who hasn’t done any research in that field would be no more of an expert in biology that someone with a PhD in physics who hasn’t taken a biology course since high school and only reads particle physics journals.

When it comes to biology and the origin of the diversity of life, the experts are evolutionary biologists. William Dembski of the Discovery Institute, with degrees in math and philosophy doesn’t count, and neither does a pastor with a Master of Divinity or even a Doctor of Ministry (DMin). Update – Earlier inaccurate statements have been removed.

A senator with a MBA is not an expert on climatology, but as luck would have it, climatologists are. For some strange reason climate change, rather than being a scientific issue and engineering challenge has been turned into a political issue, so we have people who have no idea what their talking about questioning the work of scientists who are following the evidence, all because it doesn’t fit with their political ideologies and won’t win them votes back home.

When it comes to educational standards, the experts are the professional educators. Teachers with years of professional training and decades of class room experience and administrators with EdD (Doctor of Education) after their name. Guess who aren’t the experts? It’s the housewives, business owners, and random jackasses who sit on school boards.

When the experts all agree on something, it’s not a conspiracy to steal your soul, turn your kids into hippies, or raise gas prices. They all agree because they have all come to the same conclusions based on the evidence. If you want to disagree with the experts, it’s not based on some principled stand, it’s because you’ve got your head up your ass.