Ph.D.

[kasuku]

The role of a PhD is to expand the field of human knowledge by doing detailed and in depth research on a tiny part of their field - it is akin to expanding the circle of the world’s knowledge by adding one tiny pimple to the surface.

Now, that does not mean (contrary to popular opinion) that having a PhD makes you ‘smart’, or ‘smarter’ than someone without one. But, if you are doing it right, then you should by definition know more about your particular pimple than anyone else on the planet. In such cases you might be “they guy who knows most… about some obscure point within your specialist field that never previously attracted the attention of researchers”. But I wouldn’t put it higher than that.

If that isn’t true, then you probably have not succeeded in expanding human knowledge in your tiny little patch/pimple.

 

[kasuku]

How do we then explain a person who knows everything you would ever need to know about peanut root hairs because he had done his PhD thesis on them but is sometimes unable help his son with his homework.

@kasuku is a generalist, i aspires to study an ever-broadening range of interests but in increasingly superficial detail. Eventully, at the limit, we generalists approach perfection by knowing "alot" about "everything".