# Ever notice how some PhD holder are incredibly arrogant and think of themselves as gods? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 13, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468 "2019-02-13T15:35:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/61 "2019-02-14T18:28:11Z")
Generalize much? A PhD might be able to help with that. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2019, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/62 "2019-02-14T18:46:12Z")
I knew a guy who had a doctorate in linguistics. People kept asking him “Does this look inflected to you?” ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2019, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/63 "2019-02-14T18:57:05Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > If you book the right flight. Took the family on a trip to Hawaii in early 2017, and Aloha Airlines fed us a meal in both directions. That’s nice, but prefer my meals to go only one direction. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/64 "2019-02-15T07:29:48Z")
> [@Toxgoddess](#): > > Ever notice how your boss says “I’m the boss. If you don’t like it, then quit.” The nerve of them. I should be able to do whatever I want at work, regardless of what the job entails. Given the attitude of the OP, I don’t think he needs to worry about the boss, except when the boss tells him to put more fries in the basket. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/65 "2019-02-15T07:32:55Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Not sure why everyone is down on PhD holders putting the acronym in their signatures. I thought that was common for folks with advanced degrees? > > wguy123 BS And everyone knows the degrees go Bull Shit More of the Same Piled Higher and Deeper ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/66 "2019-02-15T16:36:40Z")
Or a consumer of Russian troll propaganda? The question is silly, and springs directly from the ongoing cultural wars. Surprising so many here are sounding off, as if this were a real topic of discussion… ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2019, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/67 "2019-02-15T17:42:25Z")
> [@scarface54345](#): > > I guess the words “doctor of philosophy” are what give them the wrong idea of them being so godly or godlike. Anyway, I was reading about how a PhD advisor said “Listen I’m the boss here. If you don’t like that, then get out of my classroom”. That is what really opened up my eyes of PhD arrogance though for some reason I did not realize it sooner… > > TITLE EDIT: \*holders No. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/68 "2019-02-16T05:02:44Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I do consider myself godlike, but that’s due to my omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence, not the PhD. “if I had two wishes, first I’d want to be the All Being, master of time, space and dimension. Then I’d want to go to Europe.” - Steve Martin ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/69 "2019-02-16T06:03:04Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Not sure why everyone is down on PhD holders putting the acronym in their signatures. I thought that was common for folks with advanced degrees? In general, no, though it depends on the context and situation. If you’re a consultant, for instance, it’s perfectly fine to put your degrees and also elected memberships in recognized academic societies and the like on your business card. But to flaunt an advanced degree at every opportunity is something that, to me, raises a red flag that you may be dealing with an asshole, but worse, you may be dealing with a fraud. In my travels through the realm of climate change information and denialism, for instance, I’ve found that[legitimate sources of information](http://www.realclimate.org/) credit the contributors and often cite their academic affiliations, but it’s just assumed that if they’re doing research at accredited institutions they have PhDs, so it’s rather redundant to keep reminding everyone. It’s kind like if I signed off every post with “Wolfpup, certified human, not actually a juvenile canine”. Contrast that [with this fraud](http://www.drroyspencer.com/), who not only prominently displays “PhD” after his name on his worthless lying blog, but even the URL is his name with “Dr” prefixed in front of it. That sort of ostentatious preening is usually a tip-off that you’re about to be treated to some really high-octane bullshit, and that site does not disappoint! ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/70 "2019-02-16T06:40:26Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Best time was when he shoved some papers at the lab receptionist, and told her “TYPE THESE UP NOW”. (She did some typing work for folks who had no support services, ,when time allowed her). He left, and she looked right at me - stuffed the papers in the very bottom of her in basket and said “He’ll be lucky to see this by next month”. He speaks to the gods, and so may any man, but does she listen? 🙂 I have a relative who was a research physicist before he went into finance. He’s not arrogant, but but having a PhD in nuclear physics stands him in good stead when in a room full of pricks who think they are smart because they made their first million before they were 25. My first university valued persons according to their academic merit. It wasn’t all good: if you failed to learn something, it was because you were a lower level of being. But it wasn’t all bad either: I never knew the lecturers to get their facts wrong at all, which is more difficult than it sounds, even when teaching undergraduates. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/71 "2019-02-16T21:03:44Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Not sure why everyone is down on PhD holders putting the acronym in their signatures. I thought that was common for folks with advanced degrees? > > wguy123 BS Not me. I don’t put my odds’n’ends from different universités and professional qualifications / recognitions on cards, letters or e-mails. Just “Northern Piper, Counsel.” That’s all the client needs. ETA: don’t have a PhD. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2019, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/72 "2019-02-16T22:00:12Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Not sure why everyone is down on PhD holders putting the acronym in their signatures. I thought that was common for folks with advanced degrees? Pretty much standard if you are talking about emails from their work/university account. Many of my colleagues include it in their automatic signature in their emails, so it’s included even in emails they send to me. Of course, since a great deal of their correspondence is related to their professional expertise, there’s good reason to include it. It’s different for your personal email account. I don’t know anyone who signs personal emails like that. At work, or in other professional settings, I’m called “Dr. Colibri,” because that’s the standard practice. For people I work with closely, I usually ask them to call me by my first name. But some still insist on calling me “Dr. Firstname.”🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2019, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/73 "2019-02-17T11:47:41Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > If you book the right flight. Took the family on a trip to Hawaii in early 2017, and Aloha Airlines fed us a meal in both directions. Dat wuz a joke. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2019, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/74 "2019-02-17T11:53:21Z")
Depends where you are. Germany is notorious for the listing of academic qualifications. It’s a cultural thing, and the academics are the worst for this, but you see enough business cards with a string of letters after the person’s name. Elsewhere in much of Europe, outside the academic world it is thought rather pretentious to do that. I have a degree, but I only list it on my CV and only because potential clients expect that I have some sort of qualification. More or less arrogant? Maybe slightly more, on average, but I have probably encountered more arrogance overall from the clearly unlettered. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2019, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/75 "2019-02-17T13:20:13Z")
scarface54345, do you have any personal stories of someone with a Ph.D. acting arrogant, trying to come across as a god, or telling someone to get out of their classroom? Not something you read, but something that happened to you personally. If you don’t, then all you have is one passage in something you read that says this. Why do you think that that proves anything? For any given type of person, if you read widely enough, you’ll eventually find some passage in some piece of writing that criticizes that type of person. This can mean either that (1) you can’t trust anyone whatsoever or (2) you should be reading much more widely and comparing lots of different pieces of writing. To make any statement, you need lots of pieces of evidence, not just one piece of criticism in one piece of writing. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2019, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/76 "2019-02-17T13:25:08Z")
As Brayne Ded says, there is more arrogance from people who don’t know anything about a subject than there is from people who a reasonable amount about a subject. Do you know about the Dunning-Kruger effect? Take a look at the Wikipedia entry on it: > **[Dunning–Kruger effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)** > > The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills. In popular culture, the Dunning–Kruger effect is often misunderstood as a claim about general overconfidence of people with low intelligence instead of specific overconfidenc ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/77 "2019-02-17T14:09:17Z")
> [@Limmin](#): > > Or a consumer of Russian troll propaganda? > > The question is silly, and springs directly from the ongoing cultural wars. Surprising so many here are sounding off, as if this were a real topic of discussion… Here is where even the lowliest, lamest, laziest trolls can dine like kings. Help yourself to the buffet. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2019, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/78 "2019-02-17T16:47:30Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > scarface54345, do you have any personal stories of someone with a Ph.D. acting arrogant, trying to come across as a god, or telling someone to get out of their classroom? Not something you read, but something that happened to you personally. Also do even if you do have a personal anecdote of a PhD who behaved badly, how do you know that his bad behavior was related to his having a PhD. If a person who ran into my car had green eyes, am I justified saying, "Ever notice how people with green eyes are always such bad drivers. " ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2019, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/79 "2019-02-17T17:47:37Z")
When I worked in customer service, by far the biggest assholes were always lawyers. How did I know they were lawyers? Because they would take great pains to tell me they were lawyers and thus use that as a basis to (wrongly) contradict one of our policies, or use it as a threat to try to leverage to get their way. So a JD (or possibly JSD), not a PhD. The good lawyers (of which there are plenty) never did these things so I only knew them as regular customers. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468/80 "2019-02-18T00:40:43Z")
> [@scarface54345](#): > > I guess the words “doctor of philosophy” are what give them the wrong idea of them being so godly or godlike. Anyway, I was reading about how a PhD advisor said “Listen I’m the boss here. If you don’t like that, then get out of my classroom”. That is what really opened up my eyes of PhD arrogance though for some reason I did not realize it sooner… > > TITLE EDIT: \*holders I’ve met plenty of “doctors of this 'n that”. Take them out of that very narrow specialized field of study, and they are no different from and no better than anyone else. Unfortunately, the press, and people in general, give them authority and deference in ALL fields. That’s stupid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-notice-how-some-phd-holder-are-incredibly-arrogant-and-think-of-themselves-as-gods/829468.md?page=5)