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Academic Credentials and Wikiality
An anonymous reader writes "A prominent Wikipedia administrator and Wikia employee has been caught lying to the media and 'other' professors about his academic credentials. Wikipedia's Essjay has been representing himself as 'a tenured professor of theology at a private university in the eastern United States; I teach both undergraduate and graduate theology. My Academic Degrees: Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies (B.A.), Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.), Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology (Ph.D.), Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD).' His real identity came to light after Wikia offered him a job: It turns out that he is really 24 years old with no degree living in Louisville, KY. Wikipedia's co-founder, Jimbo Wales, says 'I regard it as a pseudonym and I don't really have a problem with it.' How will this affect Wikipedia's already shaky reputation with the academic world?"
Credentials are great if you need to develop a specific complex skill set for your job and need to think in a certain way using a certain set domains they teach you when you go through the academic obstacle course in the academic system (Set domains as in a set domain in set theory of math, except, vis, not with decimal symbols but with accrued experiential data patterns).
The truth is credentials and experience for many jobs are purely manufactured to keep the economy going, that is the big secret of government schools and market economies. The school-market caste system within certain job classifications. You need to divide people into functionaries in order to maintain society.
Most people who graduated high school with fairly decent marks could easily teach the first 3-4 grades in public school, and hell probably more, with a few 6 month course in teaching, public speaking and presentation, they could teach most of what is taught in public school with the exception of perhaps science.
If the "people that agreed with him" did so just on the basis of his "credentials," then maybe they should question the value people place on education - particularly the Liberal Arts (even moreso for fuzzy crap like religious studies). It's not like he was claiming to be a doctor, biologist or engineer. Now, if the "people that agreed with him" did so on the basis of his convincing arguments, then maybe the guy was smart and learned enough to make convincing arguements. In this case, maybe this proves that "credentials" don't mean as much as the weight that society tends to place on them. Maybe people tend to attribute value to "credentials" if they have some too? Maybe it is a way to validate their own schooling?
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/004628.php
Liar and extremely effective worker.
Note that the same academia which is complaining about this has already published numerous studies on how lying benefits society, and certification harms society.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
"I don't. But I do have this irrational attachment to the truth."
Yes and the "truth" of academicians changes constantly, just look at how bad the experts look the further you look back in time. That is what modern experts are like towards newer generations of children. The current generation exists within a time bubble and they accept the pablum from the academic priesthood. I'm not trying to smear education, note that I said qualified my statement by saying FOR SOME FIELDS, I did not universally smear the necessity of learning what is true and what is false. Even the academics themselves are ignorant, unless you have infinite memory capacity and processing speed your still just barely above the average human being. In our society and culture those who can process certain types of data faster and can do certain things faster are the ones who excel, not necessarily because they are the smartest. Any person of average intelligence can learn any subject given enough time and dedication, if they have the relational memory capacity.
We all process data, we do it at different speeds, and in our brain specializes processing data in different areas. Witness social intelligence of women versus that of nerdy scientific men for instance. Are those scientists any "less brilliant" because they are dullars in the social domain? Just because you are good at some tiny domain of specialized knowledge means little when you consider how finite even the most "brilliant" mind is, all human minds are weak, our own computing devices prove it again and again with their accuracy of data transmission.
When I write a message and send it out onto the internet 99% of the time it is going to be perfectly accurate, more accuraate then 98% of the people on the planets memory.
Human minds are weak, and just because you've made it to the top of the pile... congratulations, you've made it to the top of the pile of a mediocre race of animals, who's most brilliant members can barely even memorize a few pages of text in a book given a glance, while something like a digital camera can do it instantly.