I have worked in a place that employs a number of PhD’s. In the beginning of my time there, I was always impressed when someone had that level of education.
The shine is off.
The human brain is only used by us to what, 20% of its capacity? Whatever the low number is that gets thrown around?
My theory is that PhD’s have crammed so much knowledge into that 20% of the brain we use in order to excel in their field of choice, that something else was forced out.
Common sense. The ability to perform basic maintenance checks on a vehicle. Simple bodily hygiene. How to make a sandwich. Not putting Dawn liquid into the dishwasher when you run out of Cascade so you don’t turn your kitchen into a scene from Mr. Mom.
That sort of thing.
Anymore, when I meet a PhD, I judge them in a way that asks the question “what has your brain given up to reach this level?”
M.D.’s are susceptible to this. For God’s sake, there have been instances where someone went into the hospital to have a leg amputated, and they took the wrong leg. You can make it a lot more easily with one leg than with none. But no, they still had to go back in and take the other one.
The absolute worst are the rare M.D./PhD. My daughter works for UT Health in the TMC. Her former boss was an M.D./PhD. His family had to have paid someone to give him those degrees. He’s an idiot. The staff had to babysit him to make sure he doesn’t try to use research grant funds on $2500 bottles of wine or $15k Christmas parties for the staff.
Rant over.