Monday, July 19, 2010

Academically clueless

You'd think people would know better.

I feel like rolling my eyes whenever I hear somebody claim that PhDs are not "real doctors." In their view, only physicians are real doctors, and other people are just pretenders to that title. Not only is that historically ignorant, it also displays a severe lack of understanding of how the title is conventionally used.

No, folks. Physicians are not the only ones who are real doctors. In fact, the PhD holders have a more genuine claim to this title, as do people with comparable degrees (e.g. the ScD or the relatively obscure DBA).