Nice op-ed by an academic historian about the value of experts.  Now, look: People who have spent many years marinating themselves in the peculiar etiquette of a particular academic specialization will develop certain kinds of tics and traits that are annoying and/or amusing.  (The novels of David Lodge, and Jane Smiley's Moo, among many others, are excellent on that.)  Academic "experts" are a weird bunch.  But then again, maybe all experts are.  Specialization bleeds over into what some humanist experts call "subjectivation," and people's occupations end up shaping their personalities and ways of life.  Yoga teachers all seem to have distinguishing traits and features, and so do lawyers, police officers, etc..  

Academic experts may be insufferable because of our continual need for distinction, and because the economy of status in the academy is so narrowly conceived as being about "intelligence" of a certain sort.  We value and evaluate each other on a very slender basis, by and large.  (This is another blog post, or a series of massive tomes, to be honest.)  I mention this not to complain about it here--not in any extended way, anyhow--but simply to note that academic experts are touchy creatures.  And we are so not for contingent psychological reasons, but for structural reasons.  This is the truth behind Kissinger's famous line that academic fights are so nasty "because so little real power is involved."  The power is entirely in the nastiness.

But none of that should distract us from the core fact that, if you want to make a claim to know something in an interesting way that people should attend to in our world, it will help you to spend some time looking at what academics have said about it.  As difficult as we are, ignoring us will only make your problems worse, by and large.  Sorry!