Probably, kind of funny that the irony is completely lost on her.

I am not in a PhD program anymore and I didn't finish but I was enrolled in one from a good school for a few years. It was for formal methods in computer science, and specifically with regards to functional programming and temporal logic. I probably understand that niche better than most people and I probably could give reasonable educated opinions on it, but that doesn't mean I would be qualified for having strong opinions on biology or physics, or even other fields of computer science really (e.g. data science), even if I had finished my PhD.

A PhD basically means that you were willing and able to work really really hard for a certain amount of time on a very specific subject. Being smart helps but I don't think that's sufficient; I think most people could get a PhD if they were willing to do the work for it. Importantly though, PhDs are extremely focused; in a strange way saying that you have a PhD in physics sort of makes you less qualified to talk about biology.

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nis0s 4 days ago | parent [-]

> PhDs are extremely focused; in a strange way saying that you have a PhD in physics sort of makes you less qualified to talk about biology.

It depends, many fields intersect, and there are interdisciplinary approaches to problem-solving. The generalist approach is to be T-shaped, but you’re right that it’s important to know your limits. The T might be shallow on some ends, but deeper on others, so you may even have a prong, trident, or comb. Truly, it depends.

	▲	tombert 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, I don't disagree with that. If you have a PhD in theoretical physics, you're probably in a good enough position to talk about different types of calculus, and maybe some other forms of physics depending on if there's overlap. But I think a lot of people will see "Dr." in front of the name and assume that these people are like the professor from Gilligan's Island and understand everything about everything. It's entirely possible that a PhD theoretical physicist does know a lot about biology (maybe they got a job in a biophysics or something) but I'm saying it's definitely not implied, and it might even suggest that they don't have expertise in that field.