#credentialism

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — Thursday, July 2, 2026, 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time Modern hiring systems rarely select the most capable candidate. Instead, they increasingly select the candidate who appears least likely to cause disruption. This pattern is not accidental, nor is it a failure of individual judgment. It is the predictable outcome…

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — Thursday, June 4, 2026, 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time Meritocracy is widely assumed to be the organizing principle behind modern hiring and governance. The idea is simple and reassuring: the most capable individuals rise to positions of responsibility based on skill, effort, and demonstrated competence. Yet…

The Church of Graphs is dedicated to the meta-belief that knowledge must be formalized and quantifiable to be worthy of consideration. It demands that its adherents reject the evidence of their own eyes in favor of official facts and figures stamped with the imprimatur of a priestly expert class.  And: I’m here to argue that you don’t require them to make sense of the world, and to give you…

This isn't to say it's not valuable or worth listening to. You aren't wrong because you don't have an advanced degree, nor should your knowledge be dismissed.

But it's vital that people understand that academic research is not the same as reading a lot on the topic. It's doing the work. What someone with an advanced degree has done that is not something you can get from reading is actual experience doing the work. If they work in the sciences, they aren't just reading studies, they are designing and performing studies. If they work in history, they aren't just reading the primary texts, they're writing analysis, they're talking to other people who have spent their whole lives on the subject, they are getting expert peer review on their ideas, etc.

This does not make those people never wrong. Advanced degrees tend to be on very narrow fields, and you may have done reading that they haven't done if you stray even a little outside whatever sub-sub topic they work in.

You may well have researched a topic enough to be an authority in it. That does not make you the same as someone with an advanced degree. They have worked in the field in a way you haven't, and have access to things you don't. Your knowledge is valid and worthwhile. In some cases, it may even be preferable. But it's not a replacement. It does not serve the same function or do the same things. Yes, it is unfair that academia is gatekept in the way it is. Yes it is classiest and ableist. Yes it has blind spots because of those issues! Unfortunately, the fact that it's unfair doesn't make the alternatives equivalent. Just because someone is unfairly denied the ADHD medication they need doesn't mean caffeine is the same as Adderal. Speaking from personal experience on that one.