[stonethrowaway]

That’s usually part of my evaluation on whether something is worth taking seriously. The difficulty is going down that road, you’ll nullify a great portion of what’s posted here and elsewhere. To put it bluntly, people talk out of their ass.

Some people call it credentialism and they think an argument should be able to stand on its own. And those that think this, you’re welcome to have someone who isn’t a trained surgeon operating on your heart just because they make a convincing argument as to where the problem is and what the fix is. I’ll go with the bloke who is trained and has a few surgeries under their belt.

[tourmalinetaco]

Some arguments are absolutely able to stand on their own, particularly in fields where credentials don’t necessarily hold any value. A doctor is far more vetted than a stockbroker, for example, and that stockbroker is unlikely to make any major returns on their costumer’s investments, even with good “knowledge” of the market. They certainly won’t go much higher than the market averages without major insider knowledge. Credentials can only go so far, especially when you can get credentials in a fair amount of fields without any practical knowledge or understanding of said subject.