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Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, Sophocles, Archimedes; to name a handful
never had "college degrees" being self-taught; the poor things.
Just what does a Ph.D, simply a credential such as a drivers
license, have to do w/historic achievement and innate intelligence ???
Aside from the fact that I wasn't the one who initially raised Sasse's Ph.D. as evidence against him, it doesn't denigrate the legitimate achievements of those who didn't earn such advanced degrees (which
do require quite a bit more in the way of qualification than a driver's license requires) to acknowledge the effort, the thinking, and the presentation required to earn such a doctorate as Sasse's. Contrary to the beliefs of some people, they're not always sold inside matchbook covers or inside specially marked boxes of Kellogg's Corn Flakes. And while there is a rightful alarm today about whether the academy is in business to inculcate ideology rather than educate, there's still plenty to be said for those who actually achieve such high education that does not denigrate, undermine, or dismiss the intellectual or practical achievements of those whom we know to be highly educated but lack the formal credential to adorn it.
I frankly know of very few senators who've earned doctorates: prior to Sasse and Tammy Duckworth (and I admit, I'm neither an admirer of hers nor convinced that her doctorate in human services suggests a true education more than a possible ideological training considering her discipline and its contemporary issues), there were, in fact, only five who earned them prior to becoming senators: Henry Cabot Lodge (history), Daniel Patrick Moynihan (international relations), Harrison Schmitt (geology), Phil Gramm (economics), and Paul Wellstone (political science). Eleven members of the House now hold doctorates; prior to them, excluding Gramm, there were only eleven. The doctorates held by those senators and representatives were in fact quite diverse: six in history, six in political science, two in international relations, three in economics, two in physics, one in nuclear physics, one in chemistry, one in electrical engineering, among others.
And I know of only one Supreme Court justice ever to hold a doctorate---Neil Gorsuch, in legal philosophy, from Oxford. And, since it seems to be an opportunity for derision among some people to whom education is politically suspect, of all the foregoing I mentioned either by name or otherwise, only three of those doctorates were earned at Harvard---Lodge (R-Massachussetts), Schmitt (R-New Mexico), and current Rep. Bill Foster (current; D-Illinois). How they deploy their educations after having achieved them in the first place is, of course, another matter entirely, about which you can say fairly that it isn't always the case that an educated (with or without formal credential) man or woman remains by definition a man or woman of substance.
And while I have long believed Albert Jay Nock's essential faith that the only true education is self education (Nock, by the way, was educated at St. Stephen's College---long since Bard College---and at an Episcopalian theological seminary), and that the distinction between the genuinely educable person and the simply trainable person is a distinction dismissed to the peril of the academy and of society, with no denigration intended toward either person at all, I decline to reject the hard-earned credentialing of a man or a woman as proving nothing in light of my knowledge concerning how genuinely arduous it is to earn such formal recognition.
(For the record, I'm also in agreement with another Nockian observation---that by which he held that the only thing anyone can truly do "for" society is to present society with one improved unit. A doing at which I've made every effort I can in my own quiet way.)
