Robert wrote:
There is an evident distrust towards academic degrees here, and it doesn't help us. It seems to stem from a misunderstanding of egalitarianism that many Wikipedia contributors have. Some people seem to think that egalitarianism means that all people are equally competant to review an article. This is just as true as saying that all people are equally tall, and that all food in a supermarket is equally nutritious. In other words, the proposition is violently false.
I obviously can't speak for others, but this isn't my particular problem with academic degrees. I certainly don't think all people are equally qualified, but I am not confident that having a PhD is as strong an indicator of qualification as some people seem to think it is. Note also that this is not out of some sort of self-interested jealousy, as I'm currently a PhD student myself, so it would benefit me personally if people would continue to hold PhDs to be worth their weight in gold (hopefully with a similarly-sized paycheck!). But I don't think they are.
I'd honestly be willing to bet my life that a dozen Ph.D.s in Physics will produce better editorial oversight and corrections than a dozen self-selected Internet junkies, when it comes to reviewing Physics articles. I'd honestly be willing to bet my life that a dozen Ph.D.s in American Literature will produce better editorial oversight and corrections than a dozen self-selected Internet junkies, when it comes to reviewing American literature articles.
This depends very highly on the field. If we are talking about quantum physics, then I agree that academics in the field of quantum physics are the people to talk to. There are many fields in which academia is quite a bit of an ivory tower though, generally unaware of anything going on outside its walls. Pick up an academic treatise on "internet culture" sometime if you want a good laugh---you might get a bit of a taste of what the Native Americans might have felt like when 18th-century academics wrote journal articles about their culture. Or to pick an example closer to home, take a look at all the academic literature on the use of websites as a collaborative tool---it by and large ignores Wikipedia and MediaWiki, parading inferior software and discussing problems Wikipedia encountered and solved 2 years ago. If it's not done by someone with a PhD, a lot of academia doesn't know it exists, so academia tends to miss a lot of things.
So, sure, give academia its due, but not more than that. It is very good at some things, and very bad at others.
-Mark