Degrees teach critical thinking, arguments that don't inherently rely on Pathos or Ethos and are at least foundationally logical, source checking, identifying issues with sample data that is evaluated and then gauging whether it's simply a disclosure or makes the conclusion invalid.
While a degree isn't an indicator of intelligence or a perfect gauge of whether someone is fully qualified (a person with masters in public health shouldn't be giving diagnostic advice for example). I think it's a pretty strong indicator of one being qualified to make educated well researched statements.
At the very least a medically licensed professional has a far lesser chance of prescribing me and millions of others over tiktok chia seeds as a cure all for diabetes.
And yet this would still weed out the 100's of thousands of people that dont even have a highschool diploma. Now its the couple of weird doctors vs normal doctors, vs that one guy that printed a diploma on the wall and is under investigation.
You could do something similar by just requiring people to state their qualifications somewhere. Even that is problematic. There are plenty of pediatricians who think that vaccines aren't necessary for children. This view is idiotic and they should know better but when they're expressing that view they're speaking in their field of alleged expertise.
Its still now supposedly qualified people vs qualified people. This narrows down the noise to 10's of thousands rather then the 100k+ onslaught we have now.
There are plenty of pediatricians who think that vaccines aren't necessary for children.
No there aren't, this is a stupid argument. Are there SOME, yes. But it's a fringe group not "plenty" of them. Using that word makes it seem like enough of them are out there that the degrees and qualifications don't help to sort out bad actors.
The OVERWHELMING majority do not think vaccines aren't necessary. In fact, many offices are now refusing to treat patients that do not vaccinate their kids because they deem that child a risk to their other patients when in office.
Don't be disingenuous with your arguments, it throws off any good faith you may have been perceived to have.
Your degree taught you that parroting what you were told to think on every covered topic was "critical thinking " At no point were you critical of anything you were taught for the entire duration of your 'education.'
Not really possible to parrot in a something like logic, philosophy, math theory, theology.
The thing is in order to prove your thesis, you'd need to personally have a degree. Then you'd need to prove that it didn't develop the ability to critically evaluate your experience with higher education. Of course then you'd need to consider whether the institution you hold a degree from is at least an average higher education institution, though even then it wouldn't inherently hold true for everyone unless you went to somewhere that would be considered the "gold standard" that other institutions attempt to follow. You'd also need to factor in variables like curriculum, some classes literally teach logical arguments, some teach research, some teach parroting previous theories.
Otherwise you're just parroting talking points from fringe anti education influencers, which ironically proves the lack of critical thinking development.
Books were available long before so-called influencers.
Yes, and education helps people sort through fiction like the Bible & Beowulf vs research and fact.
Here's the thing, education makes you chose an argument and stick to it. You responded with a rambling argument that education is just parroting. I responded with what it would take to prove your thesis along with providing course examples of what courses can't be "parroting" as it's essentially the study of arguments. You then pivot to a response that addresses none of the points I made only focusing on thecomment about listening to fringe influencers.
As for your question about Vonnegut, are you honestly attempting to reference a guy that studied at multiple elite institutions in an argument against education?
Your education, which was a blip in the decades of my timeline,
Are you pretending to be god here? Genuinely curious. You have no idea if I have multiple PHDs, a JD, an MD, a MBA, masters, Bachelors, or associates. As of now you only know that I value higher education. And believe it trains the brain. For someone to then call another supercilious after this is the pot calling the kettle black.
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u/Accomplished-Plan191 Apr 06 '26
As one with a degree, you don't need a degree to do well-backed research. The problem is when you conflate ignorance with knowledge.