Authority over a topic belongs to its trained practitioners, not outsiders

Evidence

Mart{ put the same point in a simplified form when he said that, on the subject of Christ, it was the Christians who must be consulted: ‘anyone is to be believed in his own science or art rather than another; it is foolish to believe a doctor about agriculture or a farmer about medicine’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 320

Categorization

• CANDY: The doctor-about-agriculture proverb is a memorable, tweetable formulation of domain expertise — fun and self-contained.
• SHARE: Worth sending to anyone interested in medieval interfaith polemic or the history of the appeal-to-expertise argument.
• XREF: connects to: The ultimate authority is only the sum of its interpreting officials — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 100; An agency granted pedagogic authority cannot freely set its own content or methods — Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and…, 1344; Defending experts does not entail granting them authority over political decisions — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 270 (+1 more)