Warning! The Following is a Logical Discourse Discussing the Idea of Degrees and Experts. If you wish to not read this stop now. I said stop now. Okay, I mean it this time, don't read this if you don't want to....
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In Philosophy there is an interesting fallacy called Dubious Authority. The fallacy is, that when debating a person sometimes reverts to mentioning a source with proposes to have the answer to the question that is being asked, or the issue that is being attacked. For instance, A person with no knowledge about video games might reference a source that comes from, say a mother of two, who writes on a blog about how video games are horrible, mind zombifying (yes, I just created a word) tools of Satan, all in the effort to argue that video games are evil. Rationally Person B, who believes that video games are just entertainment, finds the source that person A mentions to be dubious or biased in their convictions.
According to the dubious authority fallacy, in order to correct such a fallacy, a person must be qualified to speak on the subject. Yet does a degree make you an expert?
While it indeed lends credence to the "expert's" views and decisions that the "expert" makes while performing his duties. Having a degree, say in science, does not mean that what the so called expert says is always the truth. Likewise what the expert says cannot always be taken as true due to his bias for merely being a human being. Such a person, a scientist, and every other person on earth is fallible. Humans are prone to mistakes in logic, mathematics, science and every other discipline on the face of planet earth form the beginning to the end.
Whether you believe in God or not, human beings are fallible.
So my question remains. What makes a person an expert if degrees merely indicate education, but not truth?
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