Many people think that
once you have heard a PhD issue an opinion on something, you should
yield to that person's assertion on the topic. But that is a dubious attitude. There are several reasons why it can be unwise to be greatly swayed by someone's opinion on something merely because he
or she is a PhD, particularly if that person is talking about some general topic.
Reason #1: Today's
PhD's are typically very specialized experts who have no special
qualifications for speaking outside of their narrow subject matter.
Universities virtually
never grant PhD's in large broad topics. They instead grant PhD's in
specific fields such as astronomy, chemistry, physics, or something
else. So a PhD who speaks outside of his exact field usually has no
more authority on that topic that any layman knowledgeable on the
topic. For example, when physicist Michio Kaku writes a book
entitled The Future of the Mind, he is no more qualified to
speak about it than a well-read layman, since it is a topic outside of his
PhD, which is in physics. Similarly, when Stephen Hawking warns us about the dangers of artificial intelligence, we should pay no
particular attention to his view, since computer science is not his area of
expertise. The average computer programmer is more qualified to
speak on such a topic than Hawking.
Even if a person is a PhD,
it doesn't necessarily mean that he is qualified to speak on all
topics relating to what he got a PhD in. Modern science is incredibly
specialized. A 35-year-old biologist may have spent most of his
career researching insects, and may not be particularly qualified to
speak of the relation of the brain and the mind. An astronomer may
have spent most of his career studying extrasolar planets, and may
not be particularly qualified to talk about the universe’s origin.
Reason #2: You don't
have to study a topic for many years to get a PhD – some people put
in more time studying a topic to get only a bachelor's degree in it.
Many people think that you
have to study a topic for 7 years or more to get a PhD. That is not
at all true. Most graduate schools will admit candidates who have got
a bachelor's degree in a topic different from the topic they are
studying in graduate school. So a person can study Art History for 4
years, get a bachelor's degree, and then get admitted to a graduate
school that will give him a PhD degree in Economics. Getting that degree may only
require three years of study. The person will then have to do more work
to get his PhD, but most of that work will probably be research work or thesis work,
not taking courses. By the time the person is granted a PhD, he may
have spent less time actually taking courses in his PhD topic than
someone might have put in taking four years to get a bachelor's
degree in some particular major.
Reason #3: In the
Internet age, anyone can get specialized information almost as easily
as a PhD can.
I remember about 35 years
ago, I used to go to the MIT library to read cosmology journals that
were only available in relatively few places (I wasn't a student, just a curious layman). Back in
those days if you wanted to study the intricacies of some knowledge
specialty, you might have to be a student or professor at a
university, or perhaps someone willing to go read at a place like the
MIT library. But now the situation is totally different. Anyone can
read up the latest theoretical physics and cosmology papers for free
at the http://arxiv.org/ server. Anyone can get tons of other specialized
information online. With this democratization of information, we
need not regard PhD's as being such special knowledge lords. The
average American citizen today has more access to information on any
particular subject than a well-connected PhD had a few decades ago.
Reason #4: You can
become a PhD even if you have poor judgment.
Although PhD stands
(because of obscure historical reasons) for “doctor of philosphy,”
there is no test for judgment or wisdom to become a PhD. Having a
title such as corporate vice-president is hard to get unless you have
fairly good judgment, but a person with extremely poor judgment can
get a PhD if he takes the courses and does the research.
Reason #5: Having a PhD
doesn't guarantee that you now are thoroughly knowledgeable
about the topic you got the PhD in.
I know someone who is a
certified nursing assistant – someone with a CNA licenses.
Periodically her employer must fill in a form that asserts she has
been working as a nursing assistant. If that form isn't filled out
periodically, she will lose her CNA license. But consider the case
of a PhD. Even though becoming a PhD involves learning so much more
complicated, there is no recertification requirement. Once a PhD,
always a PhD. What happens is that many people get a PhD in some
topic, and then hit the wall of the tough job market for PhD's. So a
PhD may often become employed in some totally different industry. One
example is that many physics PhD's end up getting jobs doing
financial analytics on Wall Street.
What this means is that
merely from the fact that someone has a PhD in a topic, you cannot
tell whether they are currently thoroughly knowledgeable about that
topic. For example, an author who claims to have a PhD in neurology
may have been working the past 10 years in some entirely different
field. Of course, if someone is both a PhD and a professor in some
particular topic, you can assume he is currently very knowledgeable
about it.
Reason #6: The
narrowness of a PhD's studies may make him not particularly qualified
to be speaking on general topics that require a great breadth of
knowledge.
Let's
consider a broad philosophical question such as: is there evidence
of some paranormal influence or supernatural influence on the
material world? Consider what you have to study to really be able to
answer that question negatively in an authoritative way. You would
need to have a good deal of knowledge of world religions, to be able
to knowledgeably evaluate various claims of supernatural influence
made by various world religions. You would need to study philosophy,
to judge the validity of philosophical arguments for a divine
creator. You would need to know a lot about physics, to adequately
evaluate the claim that the fundamental constants of the universe and the
laws of the universe are fine-tuned. You would need to also know a
great deal about cosmology, to adequately evaluate claims that the
universe’s sudden beginning is evidence for a divine creator. You
would need to know quite a bit about chemistry, to properly evaluate
the claim that the origin of life was too improbable to occur by chance.
You would need to know about biology and evolution, to properly
evaluate whether claims of intelligent design in earthly life can be
plausibly overcome through Darwinian theory. You would need to know
about neurology and psychology and philosophy of mind, to evaluate
claims that the origin of human consciousness required some agent
beyond that which evolution could have provided. You would also need
to know quite a lot about parapsychology, to evaluate claims that
certain observed anomalous phenomena (such as near-death experiences)
are evidence of some paranormal realm or reality. In short, you
would need to get a depth of knowledge about a wide variety of deep
topics before you could authoritatively answer such a question.
Now
if there were such a thing as a PhD in General Studies or a PhD in
Philosophically Relevant Studies or something like that, that might
be proof that someone can speak authoritatively on such a topic. But
a PhD merely suggests that someone has mastered one of the
many topics someone must master before speaking authoritatively on
such a topic. The same type of situation holds for questions such as
the future of man. To speak authoritatively on the topic, you might
need to master history, sociology, computer science, genetics,
international affairs, and several other deep subjects. But a PhD
would at most show that you were well-versed in just one of these
topics.
Reason #7: The opinions
of PhD's may be heavily influenced by group norms or thought customs
of clannish sociological groups they become parts of.
We often tend to think of
academics as impartial judges, weighing issues of truth objectively
like some judge considering a case. But we should remember that a PhD
is very often under the strong influence of some little academic
subculture that he becomes part of when he gets a PhD. For example,
imagine you enter into graduate school at Dartmouth, studying
evolutionary biology. It will become clear to you very soon that you
are supposed to start acting like a Dartmouth evolutionary biologist,
conforming to the expectations of your peers and superiors. This is
a small geographically isolated subculture, a cozy little club with
its own little list of taboos and norms that you will be expected to
follow. If you don't follow such norms and avoid such taboos, you
will be unlikely to find yourself with the academic position that you
desire. So, quite probably, you will do what is best for your career,
and start repeating the same “party line” being pushed by your
superiors. Similarly, if you study for a PhD in economics at the
University of Chicago, you will be pressured in numerous ways to
start thinking and writing like a typical University of Chicago
economist, rather than someone who advances economic opinions very
different from those typically voiced at that institution.
Sociological factors such
as these mean that a PhD is often someone who may be more like a
corporation spokesman than a really independent thinker. What we
often get from PhD's is a kind of “official party line” of some
relatively small elite group that the PhD wants to be part of. If
you spent 70,000 dollars to get a Yale PhD in say, neurology, would
you start voicing opinions contrary to what your other Yale PhD
neurologists are saying – or would you want very much to fit in
with that little club, and meet the group norms of that cozy little
clan? It is because of sociological reasons such as this that the
opinions of PhD's are often not particularly enlightening. Such
opinions are often just fancy rehashes of the local thought customs
in the ivory towers of some academic institution. It might be better
in many cases for you to seek out the opinions of well-informed
independent-minded individuals who stand outside of some little
academic culture where peer pressure, local thought taboos and group
norms have such a strong effect.
Remember this: when you
hear the opinion of Professor X of the Y Department at
Z University, what you are hearing may be little more
than a restatement of the thought customs (the ideological norms) of
the Y Department at Z University. Such customs may be
as disposable as the current fashion customs of the Kardashian clan.
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