Credentialism: The Religion, the Rebellion, as well as the Receipts

This is an updated version. By Dr. Eeks But first, a quick joke I wrote: Welcome to the Church of Letters! Credentialism is the health habit of treating degrees and licenses like receipts for intelligence, competence, and general worthiness to speak. The more credentials you have, the more valid your opinions apparently become. This works well in certain scenarios, like piloting a plane or doing brain surgery. But in online scientific conversations, it often turns into a kind of academic peacocking and elitist gatekeeping, deciding who gets to speak, who gets dismissed, and who gets buried under a pile of “actually”s. The Battle Cry of the Condescending Brigade:“What Are Your Credentials????!!!” When two people start debating science on social media (basically a digital pissing contest between skunks), one of them will eventually whip out the classic,“What are your credentials?”That question rarely shows up when they agree. It’s as if your credentials are irrelevant when you’re nodding along. But the second you disagree, BOOM! Here comes the snob grenade. It’s not really about facts anymore, it’s about making sure the other person knows they’re not qualified to have an opinion. Intellectual snobbery in its Sunday ideal. Just Because Credentialism Sucks, Credentials Still Matter. Credentials basically tell us someone jumped through the official hoops. They finished a program, took the required courses, and passed the tests. They can signal whether a person is qualified to do a specialized job, and they foster paint a clearer picture when paired with real-world experience. Together, they give us a better sense of who we are dealing with and what kind of “source” someone actually is. I mean, we all love our dogs. And if your dog suddenly collapses, you are probably not rushing to message someone on Instagram who posts holistic dog memes. You are heading straight to a vet. Credentials start to matter a lot more when the stakes are high. (Funny how that works.) When Letters Become the Enemy of the People: The Anti-Credentials Movement In some corners of the physical wellness and holistic well-being world, credentials have turned into public enemy number one. MDs, PhDs, and MPHs might as well stand for “Minions of Pharma Pimps” in their lexicon. Anyone with formal training is automatically part of some grand, soulless, for-profit scheme run by Big Pharma—where holistic health professionals are just pill-pushing zombies in white coats who barely mention prevention because, let’s be honest, sicker people mean bigger paychecks. It’s one giant money grab, and if you’re credentialed, congratulations, you’re part of the machine. In this view, people with letters after their names cannot be trusted, but someone with no formal training, a strong Wi-Fi signal, and an obsession with udder-to-table milk or ear candling is somehow a beacon of truth. These mind-body balance personalities often support a more chemical-free and integrative holistic well-being to well-being, which I think is fine. Things get less fine if they start peddling homemade toxin removal brews as cures for everything. To me, this whole “credentials are evil” narrative is just another flavor of snobbery. It is Know-It-Allism with aromatherapy oils. It assumes that most scientists, doctors, and public mind-body health professionals are clueless sheep blindly bowing to Big Daddy Pharma, and that only those outside the system dare to think independently. That is simply not true. No matter how much you hate Big Pharma—and believe me, I hate them in ways that are almost poetic—it is not true. If you genuinely think everyone with a credential is part of a pharmaceutical cult, you probably have not talked to enough of them. Medical and public holistic health professionals come with a spectrum of views, real questions, and a whole lot more empathy and skepticism than the internet gives them credit for, especially those who are not auditioning for social media stardom. Of course, it’s not hard to understand why the anti-credential movement thrives. When healthcare is a business, when the bottom line matters more than actual vitality, when the system hands out prescriptions like Tic Tacs, when people can’t afford their meds, when Pharma has its tentacles in media, politics, professional schools, patient advocacy groups, continuing education, and top academic journals, when mind-body health professionals talk down to people like they’re idiots, when prevention gets lip service and zero funding — yeah, people start to get pissed off and cynical. And they could try to. That’s not quackery, that’s pattern recognition. The kind even your conspiracy theorist cousin with a tinfoil hat could spot from across the room. But here’s the thing: the solution isn’t to throw science out the window and put all your faith in TikTok Dave’s apple cider vinegar cure for cancer plus. The solution is to rebuild the system so it actually puts people before profit. Fund real prevention. Invest in public well-being that isn’t just reactive. Make the science more transparent and the system more human. Show people they aren’t just dollar signs. That’s how you fix it. It’s not rocket science…just good luck fighting Goliath. Spoiler Alert for the Credential Police: Wisdom Doesn’t Come with a Diploma Frame Credentials matter, sure, but wisdom? Wisdom doesn’t come with a diploma on the wall. Wouldn’t that be nice? But nope. There are no credentials for wisdom. That means wise folks come in all kinds: some with fancy letters after their names, and some with just plain old names. Honestly, the wisest person on earth might not have much formal schooling at all. Credentials are often a privilege too. You may benefit from access to schools, the patience for years of studying, and enough money to pay for it without selling a kidney. Especially here in the U. S., where even ghosts envy student loans for their haunting skills. Plus, professional schools and licensing boards rake in cash by handing out credentials, renewing them, and insisting you keep adding more letters. Not everyone wants to sign up for that lifelong subscription service. But here’s the thing: with or without credentials, wisdom often springs from curiosity. Wise people come from all kinds of backgrounds. They dive into topics, ask tough questions, and make solid points. As Alice might say, things get“curiouser and curiouser”the deeper you look…so don’t be surprised when the smartest insights come from the most unexpected places. Smart Ideas Don’t All Wear Diplomas. Credentials or not, wisdom or not, anyone can dive into a well-being or science topic. Anyone can start a blog, toss out questions, make bold statements, and share opinions…some kinder, some sharper than a porcupine mistook for a butt acupressure cushion. Maybe someone without credentials thinks they’re a hidden genius but forgot to check their actual knowledge level. Maybe someone with credentials might opt to take a closer look at who’s funding their educational foundation and why the system feels like a money-making maze. Maybe a lot of us sound like know-it-all jerks when we talk or write (myself included, of course). Maybe most of us could be better at saying, “I don’t totally get this yet.” At the end of the day, we are all just fumbling around, trying to tuck in our insecurities and make a little more sense of the world. When someone asks,“What are your credentials?”with that tired, condescending tone that oozes smug superiority, it is not a sincere question. It is the intellectual equivalent of keeping up with the Joneses: performative, status-driven, and deeply insecure. Rather than moving the conversation forward, it brings everything to a halt. The Art of Knowing Stuff Without Acting Like You Know Everything: If you’ve got credentials and a mountain of scientific experience, and you come across someone mangling the science or twisting it into a pretzel, don’t reach for the tired “And what are yourcredentials?” It doesn’t clarify. It won’t change minds. It just makes you sound like someone who got stuffed in a locker in tenth grade and came back swinging with citations. Stick to the subject. If you want to challenge the content, challenge the content. No would gain from to audit their academic history or shame them for not publishing inNature. You never have to attack the person at all. When you do, it usually means your ego’s leaking, your frustration fuse is blown, or your argument’s not good enough. And just so we’re clear: none of that’s a wise look. Eeks. ********************************************************************************* Thanks for reading, guys. Feel free to check out some of my other public physical wellness and scicomms musings: The Precautionary Principle: Locked in the Trunk on a ‘Merican Chemical JoyRide What Killed Skip? A Story of Causation My Long First Date with Death Mortality Rate vs Case Fatality Rate, Bird Flu Style The ridiculous panic over misinformation Truth-Seeking, a Caveat to be Aware Of And Please Check out theCauses or Cures Podcast! Lots of great doctors, scientists, researchers and cool people on the show! Sign up for the NewsletterHERE! Now featuring email interviews on hot topics with experts! If you are into very short audiobooks dripping in satire, check outYours in Mind-body balance! I wrote it and Ellen Cohn recorded it. Interested in working together on a scicomms project or sponsoring a podcast? Email me aterin@bloomingwellness. com& we can set up a call! :) Dave Walter September 22, 2022 at 7:00 pm Just a few additional thoughts for consideration on why credentials are not especially relevant to any argument: Some credentials are better than others (eg PhD Harvard vs University of West Virginia), or so one would be led to believe by the people with credentials from Harvard. So, credentials are also a sign of social status, rather than of expertise per se. Invoking one’s credentials is a form of snobbery and some snobs are higher status than other snobs. Supporting an argument with one’s credentials is a form of argument from authority. This is generally considered bad form in the sciences, because the facts are supposed to speak for themselves and one’s authority is only as good as one’s facts. Western universities seem to be increasingly producing people that are credentialed, but not educated. This is especially noticeable with ‘fact checkers’, although most do not seem to have credentials relevant to the facts they are ‘checking’. Anyway, blog commenting is a great form of procrastination, but I really are encouraged to get to work on my chores. Thanks for the excuse to sit down with a cuppa (is coffee still good for you according to the experts?). Timothy Kendrick June 10, 2025 at 6:39 pm I couldn’t possibly love this anymore. I’m amazed at the intelligence of many who have never stepped into a college. Two of my friends dropped out of school I’m the 10th grade. Both are millionaires. Credentials? ….?? Colleges, for many decades now have become nothing more than indoctrination camps. IMO..no it’s a fact.