Bernie Caessens

There is an objective hierarchy among academic fields and therefore not all PhDs are equal. Before you get upset, hear me out. I am a computational physicist, I solve partial differential equations (PDEs) on a computer to simulate real world phenomena. But if I were to try to understand string theory, it would take me a full year before I can even scratch the surface. Because I don't have the mathematical rigor for it. For a string theorist though, it wouldn't be too difficult to understand what I do. Similarly, I could pick up a psychology paper and understand most of it in a first read. But obviously the reverse is not true. It would be impossible for a psychologist to understand differential equations without any prior exposure to physics or maths. Humanities papers require almost no specialised training. Anybody with common sense and some English language comprehension skills can read, or even write a humanities paper. In fact, read about the Sokal affair. A professor of physics (Alan Sokal) wanted to test the intellectual rigor of a cultural studies journal. He produced some garbage that sounded good and flattered the preconceived notions of the journal editors and voila the paper was accepted. It became a big scandal back in the day. By and large, humanities papers are not very intellectually rigorous or demanding. Hierarchies exist almost in every realm of human endeavour. Not all sports are equally physically demanding. We readily accept that. Let's stop pretending everyone is equal. It is doing more harm than good. Before you come at me with pitchforks, I am talking specifically about academic research. I have deep respect for authors, journalists, musicians, artists, anybody doing anything creative and original.

I have a PhD in Physics, I never call myself Dr. I will be patient when I explain this. It is fucking stupid and a relic of the past. The creators of PyTorch don’t have a PhD. Majority of the authors of the “Attention is all you need” paper don’t have a PhD. Elon fucking Musk doesn’t have a PhD. If you call yourself Dr. it is probably because you want to draw attention to your self image of being a smart person. Let me honest with you here: If you insist of having hierarchies, you are way down below in the pecking order. No one takes your bitch ass social science PhD seriously. You are well below the average code monkey without a Bachelors. And I think you know that.

High IQ experts work for mid IQ generalists. What means?

This is the dumbest damned thing I've ever heard Feynman say. And it's a freakishly common view among IQ 140+ physicists that anyone, of any intelligence, can understand advanced physics, if they just have some curiosity & study a bit. One suspects they simply didn't interact at any length with people below IQ 130.