It is an old dialog, and, as much as I dislike cliche, on the reasonable chance that many have not yet seen or heard it, I repeat it here.
“Why anybody can have a brain,” said the Great Wizard. “That’s a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from we have universities. Seats of great learning! Where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts. And with no more brains than you have. But, they have one thing you haven’t got. A diploma! Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the universitatis committeatum e pluribus unum, I hereby confer upon you the honorary degree of ThD.
“ThD?” asked Scarecrow.
“Doctor of thinkology.”
“The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side,” he said pompously. “O joy! Rapture!”
There it all was, our downfall spelled out, and as early as 1939.
Recall the Scarecrow, a minority among minorities, had no brain. He did not have one after receiving his credential, either, his “Degree” awarded by a fraud, himself accredited by a dubious agency. Only that after Scarecrow received his Degree, he began to think and spout great thoughts. Great wrong thoughts. Certified great wrong thoughts. Thoughts that if you were to attempt to correct publicly, you would be charged with Official Disinformation.
And, you surely did not miss it, Scarecrow thought very well of himself for having thought them.
We advance a few years and now see Scarecrow ensconced in his Chair at Prestige U. writing papers about his fears of the uncredentialed who prowl around the halls of academe seeking the ruin of souls. Because, it seems, Scarecrow’s math error was pointed out to him, not by another Expert, but by a civilian who had written him an unsolicited email. Intolerable effrontery!
Scarecrow called his congresslady and together they had a lobbyist write a bill mandating that only Certified Credentialed Experts could make Official Judgments pertaining to their subject matter. It was called the Experts Know Best Act.
Well, that’s fiction. It hasn’t happened, not yet. But Experts are pushing, dare we say nudging, in that direction.
Long-time readers will recall I predicted that a day would come when Experts would say you, as natural parents to your offspring, could not parent as well as they could, because they had PhDs in parentology. And that there argument would be how could you, in your uncredentialed state, possibly know as much as an Expert? Answer: you cannot.
Meet Dr Caitlin Baird—doctor, mind you—who took to Twitter as a representative Expert to argue why you, as a parent, could not possibly teach your child as well as Dr she (second ellipsis mine; others hers).
RIP my mentions, but seriously…what makes anyone believe they’re qualified to homeschool their kids K-12? it’s not as if teaching a) isn’t age-, grade-, and subject-specific; and b) requires a college degree in pedagogy
I mean, hell, I have…lemmee count…13 + 4 + 2 + 6 = 25 years of education (27 if you count postdocs and postbacs) and 4 degrees in both the sciences and the humanities, and I would never presume to believe I was qualified to teach all subjects? for every grade?? and all ages?…
I also, you know, have a mouth, but would never assume I can do my own dentistry with anything resembling competence
You, or rather most of you, will not have a PhD in linguistics or philology or larynxology or whatever is the proper field which covers the development of language, but, lo, here are your wee bairn flitting about with words on their tongues. This should not be possible.
Of course, not every parent can teach every child every subject. But then, in spite of rumors otherwise, not every child can learn every subject. Most parents can, if they tried, teach them at least as well as professionals, and many could teach them better, as they could skip with woke indoctrinations. After all, teaching the times table is not equivalent to attempting orthodontics, but it takes a non-Expert to see it.
The primary drive of Experts is the need of affirmation, and its mirrored horror of uncredentialed disagreement. (For a nauseating example, see this.) If they had their way, every aspect of life would have a PhD lording over it. The old joke that everything that is not forbidden is mandatory would come to life.
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About 25 years ago I was courting a twenty-something-ish girl. I remarked on her tattoo, and asked why she’d gotten it.
She didn’t have an answer, so I proposed a theory involving the Wizard of Oz;
People of her age set have had relatively few painful experiences, thus they often affect a sort of world-wearyness, mistaking that for sophistication or wisdom. I told her the wizard could not grant wisdom but he could give the next best thing; a regret. That explains the tattoo.
Her reply was “That is so true!”
Looks to me like the Expurts are just looking to secure for themselves work that is becoming increasingly harder to find as the common folk turn down their services.
What can a modern Expurt teach today that an AI could not summarize for children all the better? After all, Expurts made it!
Does need non-orthodontist Caitlin Baaaaairrrd know how to make an AI, or have Expurtise in child/AI interactions???
Time to go back to school for 11 years to get an updated piece of paper! That’ll be $50,000. Then some Indian from Chennai will be preferably hired over her on a student visa. A system of success, also by fellow Expurts!
Given that with homeschooling you’re typically using published textbooks and general programs intended for homeschooling, teaching your child using these materials isn’t the biggest challenge.
I once was on a trip with Victor Davis Hanson traveling around Greece and its neighbors. The most knowledgeable family on this trip were the parents of four children, all accompanying them. All were home schooled and the eldest knew the Republic by heart having read it in Greek several times.
He was all smiles when we sailed from Piraeus. If anyone was an expert on that trip besides VDH, it was this precocious 17 year old. So we stayed close to him and VDH.
I’m all for experts when they are experts but few in this world qualify. I’m somewhat knowledgeable in a very specific field that involves human athletic performance and one thing I know is that there aren’t any experts in the world in that area except maybe 2-3 people. It took me years to find them. But tens of thousands pose as one as they train athletes.
I lost count, in my profession, of how many times I, with my mere bachelor’s degree and more than twenty years of professional experience, had to show people with master’s and PhD degrees how to do things, or take over assignments they had botched and do them over correctly. It was the rule, not the exception. Yet each and every one of them exuded superiority and demanded respect because of their graduate degrees. And got paid more than I did.
Engineers have a feedback loop – it works or it doesn’t.
Scientism has no feedback loop.
As Mr Briggs has noted we have far too much scientism and virtually no feedback.
People who can do. People who can’t teach. And people who can’t teach become pedagogues.
The perpetual struggle between the nominal and the real once more rears it’s ugly head.
99% of all philosophical disagreements nothing more than dressed up versions of this debate.
I’m fascinated with the idea that a PhD degree bestows the holder with expertise and wisdom–that is, beyond the very narrow subject of one’s dissertation. A dissertation with the usual banality of a title: “The heuristics of navel lint in the sub-tropics: An historic retrospective of indigenous cultures.” No doubt, a few thousand hours went into the study, analysis, and documentation, along the lines of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours to achieve mastery of some field.
But I could be wrong.
For your astonishment and amazement .. see: “The illusion of information adequacy” by Gehlbach et al on journals.plos.org
Oddly, they quite fail to note that the average social “scientist” averaged about 50% on the stats courses they were forced to take.