To D. or not to D., That is the question...

An interesting thread over at Volokh on the usefulness of a Ph.D. in working in law and economics.

Honestly, (and not surprisingly) I tend to agree with this idea. I have a lot of smart friends who, unfortunately, get most of their knowledge of science from reading a lot of science fiction. While this makes them familiar with the concepts of science, it tends to also lead them to poor logical skills, reasoning by analogy and simplifications that simply don't work in real science. The science in science fiction exists to move the plot forward, not to educate or show the process of how science works. I can see the analogy here applying to law to the extent that law is also complex, subtle, and requires training to understand. I once helped an ex study for the bar (after he failed 4 times). By the end I knew the answers to a lot of questions that he did not, and thought I'd have a non-zero chance at passing the bar, but I also knew why it took real years to understand the law and I was very well aware of what I didn't know.

Exceptions exist, certainly. But I have found them to be rare and most people I know need to work through the discipline of a Ph.D. before they really know how to talk about a subject.