I confess to never having heard of Mr. Kirsch before today. But I am so excited about his post. In his infinite techie wisdom, Mr. Kirsch has declared that expertise, education, training and credentials are unnecessary! Who knew?
Why bother going to medical school or any school for that matter? Just declare yourself to be an expert. Skip the decades of study. Who needs a thorough grounding in basic science to be a doctor. Residency? Forget about it. Fellowship? A waste of time. If you identify as an expert, that’s all you need. A few episodes of Doogie Hauser should do it according to Kirsch.
Wanna be a brain surgeon? According to Kirsch all you need is a knife.
Wanna fly a 747? Skip the training. Just climb in the cockpit! Hirsch says you don’t need silly credentials like a pilot’s license.
Like SCUBA? Skip the PADI training. Just keep that breathy thingy in your mouth, right Steve? What could go wrong?
Think you can ski Headwall on your first day on skis? Steve says, just take those skis and point ‘em downhill! You are an expert if you identify as one.
All kidding aside. He is serious. He actually thinks this way. So do a lot of people. The “Death of Expertise” is what it has been called. Training is so passé. Requiring it is called “credentialism”. It’s like racism, except that you discriminate against people who have no idea what they are talking about. How unfair is that?
I think this crazy way of thinking is the result of search engine mentality. We began seeing this years ago when patients would come in with search results convinced they had Angioimunoblastic lymphadenopathy with dysproteinemia when they actually just had a lipoma.
But Dr. Google says its so.
Then of course we now have YouTube boxers. Think you are next Muhammad Ali? Just do the Ali shuffle and that’s all you need, right Steve?
His argument is ludicrous on it face. No wonder he went off the deep end with fluvoxamine and ivermectin.
But I am grateful for the exposure Steve.
Question for you? Do you need any education to be an engineer or is simply identifying as one good enough?