At 02:26 AM 6/20/98 +0000, you wrote:
>First, standard jokes aside, just what is an "expert"?? To be concise,
>it is someone other people think of when they need reliable knowledge
>and/or skills in a particular field- someone others turn to for help!
>The key word here is of course "reliable", as in consistant- a true
>expert can of course be wrong sometimes, but he or she makes fewer
>mistakes than most. For example, the average identifier of molluscs in
>my corner of the world-ocean may get 65% of the specimens in a given
>sample correct. An "expert" in this task might average 90-95% (Turridae
>excepted, of course!!!)
> So, how does one BECOME an expert? Mr Rinsberg has half of the answer-
>experience. One cannot become proficient at anything without a good
>deal of experience (in conchology, this means examining many, many
>shells!!). The other half is the root of all science- *accurate*
>observation and *correct* analysis or deductions!! One may have all the
>experience in the world, but nothing can be gained until the brain is
>shifted out of "neutral". In the old "shell world", the most common
>form of expertise is identifcation- differentiating often frustratingly
>similar species using conchological features only (with locality and
>habitat as useful but not definitve helps). To do this reliably, one
>must figure out the most "critical" or important charactaristics of any
>given species- the one(s) which differentiate it from everything else it
>could be confused with. Since there is often considerable overlap in
>features between closely-related spp (as in the current Chlamys
>debate!), this is not always easy, and requires an open and agile mind
>which doesn't see just what it expects, and doesn't mind at all when its
>beliefs are contradicted by the facts! Sometimes, this means looking
>extremely closely- there are species in the genus Astarte, for example,
>which can only be reliable told apart via a microscopic examination of
>the periostracum!! At other times, good analytical skills are needed-
>Mytilus trossuls Gould, for instance, overlaps so thouroughly with M.
>edulis L., that only an arcane set of ratios can tell them apart almost
>100% of the time (they are so-called "crypto-species"). One can look
>at many millions of specimens, but unless the brain is engaged,
>expertise is impossible.
> A further factor is Memory. This doesn't nessessarily mean remembering
>hordes of Latin and Greek words- these can be looked up in books- in
>conchology it means remembering just what to look for, when, and how.
>The best of experts will be able to cut to the chase and zero straight
>in on the essential features of the situation- and not be distracted by
>irrelevant details.
> One final thing which cannot be ignored, is the difference between
>"skill" and "talent". Expertise can be described as Applied Skill, but
>some people are just naturally better at certain things than others- i
>could practice writing music for the rest of ten lifetimes, but could
>never be as good at it as Mozart or Brahms! Not meaning to discourage
>anyone, but in conchology as well as any other field, some people are
>just naturally better at diffiicult ID problems, and especially at
>FINDING shells in their natural habitat (or, say, in a pile of debris on
>a trawler, in a short time-frame!). THis does *not* mean that those
>with less natural aptitude and predisposing abilities CAN'T become
>highly skilled ("expert") at any particular activity, it just means they
>will have to try a lot harder, and probably longer, to get to the same
>level someone else seems to achieve with an irritatingly small amount of
>effort.
>
I would like to add to this from personal experience. At one time in my
military career, I was a school trained photointerpreter ("expert") and one
thing we always stressed was that the only absolute way to identify an
object was to have seen it before. Without this prior experience, one was
capable of making an educated guess from analysis. It would seem that this
logic also applies to shell identification.
Horatio
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