My Advice for Young Students on How to Deal with Expert Opinions

“But they are the experts. You should not question them!”

I heard this advice often during my academic career.

Usually, I just sat there and did not comment on it, because I knew that if I stated my real opinion about how science and academia treat questioning and critical thinking, I would get into more trouble than it was worth it.

When I started my academic career in 2016 with my bachelor’s programme at the University of Oldenburg, the university president, Prof. Dr. Dr. Piper, welcomed every student with a speech that contained two memorable points about university and academia.

First: university and academia are the biggest dating platform to get married.

This was humorous and started the speech on a funny note.

Second: he encouraged us to question everything, because criticism is part of the scientific method and necessary to advance science. He even said that we should question our professors.

Well, in my opinion, both things are sending the wrong message completely.

University may be great for dating, but academic relationships are often toxic. And more importantly: Academia is very selective when it comes to questioning.

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When Expert Opinions Become Bad

There is a special kind of expert opinion that you should not follow blindly.

Obviously, it is fine to ask for the opinion of established people in a certain field. I even encourage it. A positive feedback culture is important, and exposing your ideas to criticism is one of the best ways to test whether they hold up. That is part of the scientific method.

The problem starts when your questions are answered with a “because I say so” attitude.

If your questions are not answered with transparent reasoning, that is exactly the moment when you should become critical of expert guidance. It is also the moment when you may need to find your own way.

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Why Expert Opinions Become Bad

This intransparent and autocratic reasoning happens often in academia, despite the open-looking façade around criticism.

There are also simple mechanisms behind why experts start to reason like this.

Experts did not start as experts. They became leading people in their field through hard work and scientific rigour. During that phase, the burden of proof was on them. They had to provide evidence. They had to argue well. They had to convince others.

But once expert status is achieved, this can change.

People start trusting their opinions more easily. The longer someone holds this status, the easier it becomes to shift from providing evidence for a claim to simply saying:

“That is what I experienced.”

And from there, it is not a long way to:

“Because I say so.”

That sentence is a very efficient way to end a discussion.

Unfortunately, it is also a terrible way to do science.

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Why Following Bad Expert Opinion Can Be Devastating

“Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.”
— Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life, Rule 4

The position of an expert today is not the same as the position of a young researcher today.

And this matters in many ways.

First, there is again the burden of proof. If an established expert is given a stage, they can sometimes make completely bogus claims, and people will not question them. Sometimes, several people have to suffer before an expert is finally stopped.

Don´t believe me? Ask any AI assistant to summarize the story of Paolo Macchiarini and synthetic trachea transplants. It is almost impossible to believe what this “expert” got away with, partly because the burden of proof was no longer placed on him in the way it should have been.

But if you, as a young researcher, base your work on expert claims, people will dissect you like a frog in biology class.

And if they do, you cannot simply say:

“That is what an expert told me.”

You will have to bring the evidence for your claims.

What works for an expert will not automatically work for you. Luckily, sometimes.

There is also a second mechanism that makes expert opinion unsuitable for your own work: what worked for them during their time of becoming an expert is unlikely to work for you today.

The world has changed.

The field has changed.

The tools have changed.

The expectations have changed.

I once worked with a very micromanaging boss, whom I ultimately did not listen to in many aspects of my work, because I realised that this way of working was extremely inefficient. During that time, this boss was the expert for a certain operation I had to do in the lab. But the reasoning for why I had to follow their way was basically:

“Because that worked in my experience.”

The problem was that this person’s regular lab experience was probably 20 years old.

The field had changed drastically. What worked for your boss 20 years ago is not automatically what works for you today.

So find your own way of doing things if you are faced with this kind of reasoning. Do not allow expert opinions to be forced on you without transparent arguments.

If expert opinions are forced on you, the best case is that you do your work in a way that is not optimised for your situation.

The worst case is that you break down because you are trying to force something that simply does not work for you.

Of course, if there is good reasoning on the side of the expert, then you can try to transfer their opinion to your situation. But to transfer it properly, every why and every what must be answered with transparent reasoning and evidence.

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Conflicts Will Arise, But They Will Be Worth It

One of my greatest successes is that I managed to finish my PhD in three years.

The average in my department was far above four years when I started working there. This pace was possible because I did not shy away from conflict when I needed to optimise my work for myself. I questioned expert opinions when they were forced on me without convincing reasoning.

This led to many conflicts.

And I will not lie: at times, these conflicts were hard on me.

But ultimately, it was worth it.

More important than finishing on time is the fact that I can openly say that my PhD and the publications resulting from it always stayed mine.

That is something I am proud of today.

I know this feeling is not shared by every first author and their paper. And of course, it is still good for the author to have the publication. But ultimately, it is a shame for academia and for the world’s feedback culture when young researchers can no longer recognise their own work.