Professionals given no credit on forums..

[Alan Lightstone]

I was fortunate enough to work with a number of Nobel laureates during my brief academic career. I found all of them humble, and approachable.

My favorite encounter was with a Nobel Laureate in Biology (I didn't know that at the time), who I met early in my freshman year at MIT in a Biology Dept mixer. I started talking to this gentleman, and asked him about his research. He went into some detail about reverse transcriptase (an enzyme that converts RNA into DNA). After listening intently, and trying to understand it, I asked him "How has your research panned out?" He looked at me, kind of quizzically, and said that, "The people in Stockholm seemed to like it." Even dumb freshman that I was, I realized that he had won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. OMG!! As I tried to slink away feeling like an idiot, he was amused enough by our conversation that he offered to be my biology department advisor, which I readily took him up on. I found every interaction with him to be great. Warm, entertaining, and truly concerned with my well-being, education, and future.

I have a number of similar stories with Nobel laureates that I embarrassed myself in front of (strangely, this turned out to be a strange talent of mine).

Every one of them, I would suggest, would be considered a true World's expert. And these experts were all a pleasure to speak with. And I'm pretty sure that it didn't hurt me to have letters of recommendation on my behalf written by Nobel laureates. For this I am eternally grateful.

[Mark Hennebury]

No shame in not knowing.
My point is the higher that you climb, the more that you know in your given profession, the less people there are that understand what you understand, therefore the less people that you can have a "conversation" with. Sure you can talk to anyone always, you can talk to people who run three miles, or five miles, or ten, but if you run a marathon, the only people that can understand running a marathon are people who have run a marathon.

When you achieve something that is exceptional, that is the highpoint of your 25 year career, and you are blown away at what you have accomplished, and post it online for the world to see...............and nobody notices......welcome to woodworking.

If you are in sports world, you get a $100,000,000 dollar contract. Science you get the Nobel prize. Life.

They we're probably afraid of sounding stupid asking the question.
There is no shame in not knowing something, if you don't ask, you don't learn

[Norman Pirollo]

No shame in not knowing.
My point is the higher that you climb, the more that you know in your given profession, the less people there are that understand what you understand, therefore the less people that you can have a "conversation" with. Sure you can talk to anyone always, you can talk to people who run three miles, or five miles, or ten, but if you run a marathon, the only people that can understand running a marathon are people who have run a marathon.

When you achieve something that is exceptional, that is the highpoint of your 25 year career, and you are blown away at what you have accomplished, and post it online for the world to see...............and nobody notices......welcome to woodworking.

If you are in sports world, you get a $100,000,000 dollar contract. Science you get the Nobel prize. Life.

Well said and very true!

[Edward Weber]

No shame in not knowing.
My point is the higher that you climb, the more that you know in your given profession, the less people there are that understand what you understand, therefore the less people that you can have a "conversation" with. Sure you can talk to anyone always, you can talk to people who run three miles, or five miles, or ten, but if you run a marathon, the only people that can understand running a marathon are people who have run a marathon.

When you achieve something that is exceptional, that is the highpoint of your 25 year career, and you are blown away at what you have accomplished, and post it online for the world to see...............and nobody notices......welcome to woodworking.

If you are in sports world, you get a $100,000,000 dollar contract. Science you get the Nobel prize. Life.

Okay, different meaning than I was thinking but you're correct of course.
This phenomenon is becoming more and more common these days. No longer do you need to have 25 years or so in your field and be at dizzying heights of your profession for people to not understand you. It seems to me that the bar is much lower than that these days.

With the internet making everyone an instant expert on everything, many people can't differentiate between the inert knowledge often presented to them and actual depth of knowledge select few have. This goes back to the OP's point, professionals given no credit.
Pursuing further knowledge is often looked at negatively, or just disregarded" why do I need to know that, the next time I need info, I'll just google it, then I'll be an expert/professional too."
This is the destruction of critical thinking.

JMHO

[Don Corbeil]

With the internet offering instant access to information, there's a misconception that mere surface-level understanding equates to true expertise. This undermines the years of dedication and hard work professionals put into mastering their craft. Critical thinking is indeed eroded when people opt for quick fixes rather than engaging in deep learning and understanding. As professionals, it's crucial to persevere in our pursuit of knowledge and expertise, despite the prevailing trends. Educating others about the value of specialized knowledge and critical thinking is key to combating this destructive mindset.

[Keegan Shields]

knowledge and experience are different.

[Doug Garson]

knowledge and experience are different.

As are intelligence and ignorance.

[jack duren]

We bought a dual Woodwmaster sander at a commercial shop one time. We had nothing but trouble and sold it. I brought this up during a conversation on Woodworkingtalk. One member and one moderator both talked about how great they were. Neither bought their sander and had never owned one, but talked about how great their website was. Anybody can have a great website, but if you have never owned tye tool, you haven’t the information to promote the tool.

tired of fighting with people who knew very little other than what they read , led me to stop going over there..

[Edward Weber]

We bought a dual Woodwmaster sander at a commercial shop one time. We had nothing but trouble and sold it. I brought this up during a conversation on Woodworkingtalk. One member and one moderator both talked about how great they were. Neither bought their sander and had never owned one, but talked about how great their website was. Anybody can have a great website, but if you have never owned tye tool, you haven’t the information to promote the tool.

tired of fighting with people who knew very little other than what they read , led me to stop going over there..

This is like when you're shopping and ask the salesperson about a product and they start reading the box to you.

[jack duren]

Exactly…….

[Warren Lake]

I bought a shaper and a tennon machine from a top kitchen place years back. He had a table saw from one brand. I asked he said he would not sell it to me, I said why, He said it was huge grief and the only good thing about that company was the advertising. Kind of him to save me.

No fan of drum sanders cause ive had better.

Old guy had poor english and wrote the whole program for cabinet school. When he worked at this largest companies the lawyers came and asked him to go over all the contracts and he told them what to change. They had big deal education, he had a grade three education or part of it as the war ended school.

He could not get a job now as teacher as no degrees. They all can get a job with their degrees and dont have any real world experience just nanny state repetition. We were taught way more than what we were taught cause the teachers made a living in the trade for a lifetime before they taught.

Salesman are the worst., In the past many were great as they had tons of experience now new guys with a nice shirt reading from a play book. last time I called 3M I got a useless human copy and paste compared to the past guy that did a lifetime there and shared lots with me and taught me.

[Mark Hennebury]

Many years ago my wife asked me why I insist on going to the store to look for stuff, rather than just phoning and asking if they had the product in stock.
I simply don't trust the people to know or care enough to find out.

I remember many decades ago going into department store and heading to the vacuum cleaner department and asking the gentleman that worked there if they had any vacuum cleaners with a power head, to which he replied no. Looking behind him, I saw vacuum cleaners with power heads, which I pointed out to him, his reply was that this wasn't his department he was just filling in for someone.

So I don't phone, I go to the store and check the shelves myself, I sometimes go out back and check the warehouse too, as if the shelf is empty, it doesn't mean they don't have any, sometimes they are just too lazy to refill it, and it isn't any point asking if they have any out the back in the warehouse.

[Warren Lake]

yes just happened to me with a store where they said we dont have that then I found it

Last planer where is the knife grinder? "we dont have it" asked a second time another day same im sure we dont have it. Knife grinder was sitting in the same room as the planer. What is scarey is that human was teaching woodworking high school level. The planer had broken parts nothing said in the write up, claimed to be used in service to end of school year, asked for the reports and no accident reports., Planer failed inspection twice or three times past got the reports and said failed cause a door was off. Its like failing an etest cause your car door is open., CLose the door moron. Inspection company that inspected it knew nothing abouit woodworking machinery. Okay then what is the point when they said the machine was fine and okay for use, it was not. I called the ministry of labour and they said they would investigate. Not the right time for me but will go back to them when I have time.

Ive had four high school woodworking experiences and I give them all a fail. Colleges are good and have it together compared.

We have to be colombo in life, stop digest go over ask more and and. I just got in a bit of a mouth off with a high school principle. The machine they were selling had the amps listed wrong, no HP and they machine was listed by the plate on the knife grinder and not the machine model serial etc. These people are being paid to teach us? teach us what if you dont even understand what is in front of you. At one point I called schools to question and had a teacher tell me he had seen a person teaching woodworking that was teaching computers a week before that. That said the teachers we had in 81 were amazing people.

We need a large sense of humour to put up with a fair bit of stuff that is not funny.

[Edward Weber]

Salesman are the worst., In the past many were great as they had tons of experience now new guys with a nice shirt reading from a play book. last time I called 3M I got a useless human copy and paste compared to the past guy that did a lifetime there and shared lots with me and taught me.

This is the same way I feel about "parts guys"
When I used to order parts as part of my job, there were many people at parts houses to deal with from the ones who,"if it's not on the screen I can't help you" to the one guy who actually worked on the things I needed parts for.
I could call him up and he knew exactly what I was asking for, more than I did in many cases. He would actually let me know when he went on vacation so I could order things ahead of time and not have to go elsewhere and deal with the "book only" guys.