'Experts' must stay in their lane
In the area of childhood and trauma studies, Dr Gabor Maté is revered by millions. File photo: Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland
I love to cook. My passion for cooking was ignited by my first husband’s mother when I was just 20 and living in Singapore. She was an incredible cook, and I learnt a lot from her. You can be sure I know my spices and how to choose fresh fruit and vegetables like a boss.
I also know quite a bit about cooking delicious, nutritious, meals on a (very) tight budget, and am always happy to pass my knowledge on. If you came to my home, I would be delighted to offer you dishes that I hope will make your mouth and tummy happy, and make you feel cherished.
However, I am not an expert in this area. No one would ever ask me to design a menu for their Michelin-starred restaurant. I can share recipes and tips, but that’s about it.
There are areas, however, where I am an expert, and I will happily engage with anyone who wants to know more. It is important that I know where my expertise lies and that I stay in my lane.
Why? Because when someone is identified as an expert, it confers on them a certain credibility. We believe what they say. If someone is identified — by themselves or someone else — as an expert, there is a tacit understanding that they are in possession of more knowledge than most in the area where they claim expertise.
We trust that they have read, thought, and learned about the area more than the average person. We use experts as short-cuts to information that we require, knowledge that we would like to acquire, and sources of wisdom that present issues to us in new and different ways. Most significantly, perhaps, we tend to trust experts, and we tend not to interrogate their claims to expertise.
For some people who claim to be experts, there is little harm in their delusion.
Parents of young children, for example are deluged with (mostly harmless) expert advice from people who have confused 'common sense' or their own parenting instinct with years of training and research.
Think of the Happy Pear brothers, who are well known for their tasty recipes – they are certainly experts in delicious vegetarian food.
They are not experts, however, in medical oncology, and in 2022, they were roundly criticised for claims they made in relation to mushrooms and breast cancer. After widespread backlash from experts including cancer researcher David Robert Grimes and breast surgeon and breast cancer survivor Dr Liz O'Riordan, they apologised, adding "The Happy Pear never represents itself as a medical professional or medical expert."
In the area of childhood and trauma studies, Dr Gabor Maté is revered by millions. Dr Maté has written quite a body of work on the correlation between trauma and addiction. While some of his claims are more tenuous than others (like his identification of his own secret buying of vinyl being linked to the fact that he was born in Nazi-occupied Budapest during the Second World War), he brought a more compassionate understanding of addiction to the masses.
His book , however, claims that ADHD is a result of trauma. In , Dr Maté is expressing his opinion. He is not sharing empirical, rigorous, scientific evidence.
Of course, just like everyone else in the world, he is allowed to express his opinions on anything and everything he likes. The danger is that because he is such a highly regarded expert in addiction and its links to trauma, most people are prepared to accept his opinions as facts.
This could result in parents familiar with Dr Mate’s work not testing their children for ADHD for fear that it will reflect poorly on them — the inference being that they have traumatised their children.
ADHD, all the science has found, is a genetic condition — it's not caused by trauma.
It can be dangerous when people refuse to stay in their own lanes. Take, for example, Dr Mehmet Oz. Yes, that Dr Oz, the TV doctor with controversial, unscientific views on vaccines among other things — recently appointed as head of the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
By all accounts, he is a hugely talented cardiovascular surgeon and an expert in that area. He is not, however, an expert in weight loss, nor in paediatrics or anything else he regularly claims expertise in. A study of 80 recommendations made on found that published evidence supported 46%, did not support 39%, and contraindicated 15%.
The halo effect is in full force here. This is where we believe that if someone is recognised as an expert in one area, they are almost automatically an expert in another area, especially if that area is adjacent to theirs.
Put it like this — while they are both doctors, you wouldn’t want a gynaecologist, or even a psychiatrist, to remove your brain tumour.
The ramifications of straying from your area of expertise can be enormous.
In Ireland in 2019, a couple was convicted and imprisoned for the crime of FGM. An appeal in their case found their convictions were unsafe because the interpreter in the case was not expert enough to render an accurate account in English of what the couple was saying in their own French dialect.
I have no doubt they spoke reasonable French, but that does not make someone an expert in French dialects from Africa, much less in translating them for legal purposes.
The world needs experts. We need people who are prepared to dedicate their passions, intellects, and time, to finding things out that will further our collective knowledge in all areas of life. It is possible to claim expertise in more than one area, but refusing to stay in your lane can be dangerous to people who believe that a master of one trade is a master of all.
- Hazel Katherine Larkin is a sociologist and an expert in child abuse and trauma. Her academic text on child sexual abuse in Ireland will be published in 2026
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