How many of you have ever presented your credentials as validation for your knowledge?
It’s not uncommon to meet individuals that have credentials in a topic and use it as evidence that their position on a topic is correct. That’s fallacious thinking.
Credentials more often than not simply require jumping through legal and academic hoops. Much of the academic education system doesn’t challenge someone’s ability to think critically on topics, nor does it challenge them to seek out new information and analyze it. Instead, it has people read textbooks and regurgitate the information they are being fed.
This goes with any profession. If you’re a registered dietitian, that doesn’t mean you have a good grasp of nutritional science. If you’re a medical doctor, that doesn’t mean you have a good grasp of human physiology and pathology. While there are many open-minded and well-read dietitians and doctors in the world, there are also many that make you question how they even got the credential to begin with.
In theory, someone having a credential should suggest that they have good knowledge in a topic. Maybe they do, but we don’t feel it is safe to make that assumption anymore given our experiences with these individuals. It’s too hit-and-miss. Similarly, simply because someone doesn’t have a credential in a topic does not mean they don’t know anything. There are many autodidactic individuals that self-learn in the medical and nutritional fields.
Again, don’t put all your eggs in the credential basket. Yes, credentials are important and communicate important information, but they serve only as a potential starting point for vetting someone’s intellect on any given topic. They hold weight, just not the majority of the weight.
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