

In Response to an HN thread: Credentials - Shamiq
http://shamazing.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-response-to-hn-thread-credentials.html

======
chris11
In general, credentials are not worth much. If I don't have the technical
background or knowledge to evaluate an answer given by an expert, I would be
doing a disservice to myself to accept that answer on face value.Sure, I could
use that explanation for learning. But still, it would be a lot better to get
explanations from multiple sources.

So basically expert opinions can give a good start for learning something, but
you won't learn a lot if you only go off that expert opinion.

Since the post you were referring to was about the value of ideas in math,
credentials might have helped a little bit, because evaluating an idea's worth
requires knowledge and experience in that problem domain. But even if that
post were written by a credentialed expert, that fact would not help me a lot.
I still have almost no idea how to evaluate the importance of an idea in
mathematics, and learning that will take more than talking to one person.

Also, expertise and credentials are overrated. That's one thing that really
shocked me while I was reading the four-hour work week. Tim Ferris suggested
that you gain expertise and credentials, mentioning that it was quite easy.
One of the ways he suggested was to go to some close by organization or
fortune-500 company and hold a free seminar on a topic, which is easy to do
because the standards for letting someone show up and do a free seminar are
probably low. Then, when talking with someone, you just need to mention the
seminars, and they will assume that the organization has evaluated you, and
your worth will be viewed as dependent on that organization.

So basically, what I got from that was I naturally give too much deference to
experts, and I don't really have the knowledge to give a thorough evaluation
of someone's credentials.And a thorough evaluation of someone's credentials in
an internet forum would probably devolve into a flame war.For example, the
author of the article on the number 6174 has decent credentials, but it
appears that he misused the definition of a kernel (See
<http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ModuleKernel.html>).So how do I evaluate errors
in an opinion where the value is determined from credentials? Do I say that
it's not an error, the author just missed the details, or the credentials are
not worth much?

Edit: Link to HN conversation:<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=480398>

