Article created by: Mantas Kačerauskas
Just because someone’s got a bunch of fancy diplomas (hi!) doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily smart. Oh, they might have a ton of technical knowledge in their narrow field of study, but they might lack common sense. Or even worse—they might be so arrogant that they think they’re experts in every field. Which, as you’re about to see, is definitely not the case.
Redditor u/SgtSkillcraft sparked a very interesting discussion after asking people for real-life examples where someone with a PhD acted like a total idiot. Scroll down for the very top stories. Amusement? Guaranteed. A good dose of humility? You bet! Don’t forget to upvote your fave posts.
I worked with a girl that graduated from Brown...she would never shut up about it. always Brown this and Brown that. I went to a state school and it was apparent that she looked down on anyone that didn't attend an Ivy League school, so one day she was doing that and I couldn't stop myself, I said something like " Oh, you went to Brown? and yet, here we are, together in the same place, doing the same job."
My wife has two Masters and a PhD, is internationally recognized in her field, and is an absent minded doofus. My role in her life is to ensure that her car works, that she takes her meds, and that she eats things other than yogurt and eggs. She can be brilliant one minute, then walk into the side of a moving bus the next.
I love her dearly but she's a numpty.
Not quite PhD. But I was at a party (in the uk) full of med students and stereotypically everyone was off their face drunk. Well some guy fell over and broke his collar bone and immediately got rushed by a dozen of them all fussing and asking him the same questions over and 'going through the checklist". Half an hour later and he's still on the couch in pain and I go in to ask if anybody knows why the ambulance is taking so long. Nobody had an answer because nobody had called one. A party full of medical students hadn't called an ambulance or made any transport arrangements for a guy in severe pain with a broken clavicle. Idiots.
I went to 3 ERs when I felt something was wrong with my arm. It felt like a bug bite day 1 and by day 4 a bungee cord from my elbow to my wrist. 3 doctors said it was a skin irritation or dermatitis. I kept telling them something was wrong. I have no medical degree. I work in Property Management. Day 5 I walked into another ER and said “I don’t care if I have to pay out of pocket or sit here all night but something is wrong with my arm”. Finally, after many rude looks and comments I was given an ultrasound of my arm. Then rushed to a MRI. Then told I was being admitted. A 3” blood clot in my upper arm, 2 in my chest area, and one had passed my lung already. Diagnosed with Factor 2 Gene Mutation 22 days later (blood clotting disorder).
The entire pandemic response in the US. Everyone became a virologist, except the actual virologists who were called sell outs and liars.
My wife's stepfather was a chemist who currently has diabetes. One night he went to the ER because his blood sugar was dangerously high. He claimed he was eating well (he normally doesnt) so there's no reason why his blood sugar was high.
In his car was a 2-liter bottle of ginger ale mixed in with grape juice. He said that the two canceled their sugars out and we didn't know what we were talking about because he was a chemist and he knows how to combine things.
Peter Duesberg. Molecular biologist who works as a researcher at UC Berkeley and has an otherwise stellar career and well-known for his work. Became an AIDS denialist, claiming there's no link between HIV and AIDS. Led countless people down the rabbit hole, including many who were HIV positive. These individuals ended up infecting others and refusing antiretroviral therapies. This included an AIDS denialist activist named Christine Maggiore who infected her infant through breastfeeding thinking "Hey it's not a big deal it's just HIV it doesn't cause AIDS."
I have a PhD and I am an idiot in most respects.
All it takes to get a PhD is to be really good at or persistent in doing research in one narrow area of study.
Edit: So several commenters pointed out that I simplified things too much. A PhD also requires hard work, luck, and some basic competence in a topic. But that doesn't preclude one from being completely clueless in other aspects of life.
My first call at my first IT job was in a medical laboratory. There was a doctor who had been in the job for years and she called saying her computer would not power on. I walked her through some troubleshooting and nothing worked. "Is the computer plugged in? Ok, is the monitor on? Ok, when did the problem start?" type of questions were asked and she answered them all. I go up to her office and indeed the computer is plugged in to a power strip which is plugged in to itself. Cleaning crew had deep cleaned her office and never plugged anything back in. Dr. plugged the power strip into itself thinking that as long as it was plugged in, that's all she needed.
My college roommate, smartest person I've ever met, spent nearly an hour trying to shove a desk back into the corner of our room at an angle. She wouldn't listen to me because in her words she "got this."
After she finally gave up, I walked over. Pulled the desk out completely and straightened it with the wall, and pushed it back in. One movement, no struggle.
Many a time we had where I'd realize she might be the smart one but I've got more common sense.
Dr. Ben Carson, one of the most skilled neurosurgeons alive, thinking that the Egyptian pyramids were used to store grain.
I worked IT for a hospital. I was speaking to a doctor who forgot his password. While he was spelling his name phonetically over the phone, he said, "Z as in Xylophone." Needless to say, my eyebrows raised.
As an aside, look at how much nepotism factors into getting into an Ivy League school before being automatically impressed that someone has a degree from one
I had a professor for higher mathematics who had real difficulties figuring out how to extract a cup of coffee from the vending machine. Bless him.
A doctor telling me my 6 month old couldn’t have strep because she was infant and taking her to the ER because she was getting worse and no urgent cares were open and finding out she had strep.
Dr. Oz. He really went to Harvard. He really is a University Professor. He really did pioneer several cardiac surgery techniques.
Also, he promoted hydroxychloroquinine to fight Covid after reading about it on the Internet.
I don't mention the obvious scams that he flogs on his TV show because I don't think he really believes in them; I think it's an act he puts on just to scam gullible people.
I was at a keg party at college and the (gravity keg) was set up. Someone complained that the beer was not flowing, so I check that the keg was still almost full. Turns out someone closed the air intake on top. I opened the intake and poured myself a beer. Problem solved. A few minutes later someone else complains the beer is out. I told them the keg was full a few minutes ago and it was a tap problem that I fixed. They told me they just came from the keg. I go back to the keg and find the intake was closed again. Opened it and poured the young lady who said it was empty a beer. As she is leaving my suitemate comes in and goes to the intake can closes it. Now my suitemate is a straight A student who gets all As mostly due to his photographic memory. Back to the keg. So I tell him that he needs to leave the intake open to let air in to displace the beer coming out of the lower tap. He then proceeds to tell me that since the beer is carbonated air is not needed to replace the liquid volumn lost when the beer is dispensed. So I asked him two questions; If it is not needed, why is there the upper tap, and does he really think the amount of gas the carbonation gives off in a glass of beer is equal to the volumn of the liquid beer? He thought for a few seconds and his only response was, "I have a 4.0, what is your GPA?" Then he walked away.
My ex-boyfriends mother was a linguistics professor and knew over 10 languages. She was also one of the dumbest people I've ever met. Some examples: she believed that in case of emergency stewardesses catapult out of the plane; she was also convinced donating blood causes some blood disease and you can die because of it. But my favourite one was when she said her son's orthopaedic problems are not a result of a serious injury he had. His knee hurts because he eats too much ketchup.
As someone who works security in a hospital I can say a good 90% of the doctors there are smart but lack any type of common sense and sometimes I wonder how they function on a day to day basis
EDIT: I also forgot to mention I’m almost 2 years in a relationship with a pediatric cardiologist and it’s as shocking at home as it is with the ones I work with lmao but I can’t say it’s boring
A physics professor got catfished by someone claiming to be a supermodel who asked him to bring her suitcase from Brussels to Milan. Of course, the suitcase had drugs.
An idiot would have seen through that in two seconds, but a super smart guy convinced himself it was real.
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/physics-professor-catfished-by-super-model-imposter-lands-in-jail-for-drug-smuggling/
I used to work at a university, and tons of academics are incredibly educated in their chosen field, but have the common sense of your average dachshund.
My favourite was probably an entire group of geology professors and PhD candidates who got "stuck" for a good few minutes in an entryway because they didn't think to check if the door required a pull rather than a push. Bearing in mind that they'd just entered with that same door not an hour before.
I have a PhD, and I work with a bunch of PhDs. Basically, a lot of them think that because they succeeded in one area, they are an expert in every other area of life. And they always have strong opinions about everything. I think it's also called a PhD syndrome.
My ex had a real lack of knowledge and common sense when it came to children.
She's currently completing her PHD in biochemistry and molecular biology. She was confused though when I said I couldn't go out after putting my toddler to bed as I had no one to babysit. In her mind, once my daughter was asleep she no longer needed anyone here to take care of her.
I chalked it up to cultural differences and never being around children. Eventually though our opinions on raising kids differed too much and I had to end things for my daughter's sake.
I know many people in the science field that conduct Double Blind Randomized controlled experiments in the lab and then go home and check their horoscopes...
I've been walking around for 4 hours like this. I'm a lawyer.
