Lindybeige is a fantastic explainer when it comes to that sort of thing - it also highlights how quickly a person can go from knowing nothing to practically hobbyist levels of knowledge in 20 minutes post internet
Scott Adams - creator of Dilbert - was recently ridiculed for suggesting that someone could become an expert on a topic after an hour of talking with the brightest minds in that field. While "expert" needs to be defined, I don't think it's far fetched.
How many times have we had that conversation with someone who knows their topic backwards and forwards and after minutes, we have a deeper understanding of it than almost anyone around. Expand that out to an hour with a few key/relevant questions to frame the conversation and it is totally believable.
I recently attended a lecture by Hadley Wickham on his latest tools built for R. It was both edifying and deeply saddening. I learned a great deal about R in a short time from (IMHO) one of the masters, and I realized that if Haldey is typical of a Rice University professor I should have challenged myself to get a better education than I did.
How many times have we had that conversation with someone who knows their topic backwards and forwards and after minutes, we have a deeper understanding of it than almost anyone around. Expand that out to an hour with a few key/relevant questions to frame the conversation and it is totally believable.