People value "credentials" too much. Fact is most people don't have much knowledge beyond their area of expertise. And in a lot and lot of fields, people don't have expertise in their own fields !!!!

I will rarely if ever comment on stuff in physics, chemistry, various types of engineering, medicine ( to a large extent) , biotechnology e.t.c. that's because I have little to no knowledge on these fields. People working in these fields 99.99% likely know better than me

Also these fields are in large part deterministic systems. X leads to Y leads to Z or complex variations of the above.

I may have some healthy skepticism on results peddled in these fields especially where there is possibility of an agenda at play.

On the other hand, there are fields where expertise is over rated to a large extent. Such fields benefit from a ( enlightened) democratization of discourse

Also in such cases, scope for agenda playing a larger role than expertise shouldn't be discounted. ALWAYS Look for AGENDA FIRST in such fields

Let's say a financial "expert" is pitching you a product. Don't completely discount it benefiting you but the first thing to look is at his incentives, agenda as well

Let's say a US based ( Indian origin or otherwise) think tanker is mentioning what India's foreign policy objectives should be. Or what India should be doing and shouldn't. He backs it up with nice sounding research. Well, don't discount it totally but LOOK AT AGENDA

same for fields like economics or public policy. Many of these fields are also linked to politics. Not saying there is no value of expertise , but have scepticism.

Also in these fields many are clouded by ideology etc

Also many people in such fields are influenced by what their peers do. Incentive structures are such.

A scientist is unlikely to change his conclusions based on empirical observations and facts because of what his peers think ( most of the times, atleast until recently) But...

A foreign policy think tanker would really bother about what his counterparts think. A money manager wouldn't want to stray too much from what his peers do because his incentives are structured such ( though there maybe asymmetric payoffs of being contrarian)

Herd mentality is all too common in such fields and in many cases even overcomes the value of expertise they may have