Jane Doe, PhD, John Doe, JD

jnmeade

jnmeade

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Jim Meade
I'm curious as to your take on pilots who use non-aviation credentials as part of their signature on an aviation forum.
Does a PhD in agronomy lend credence to a post about a Saratoga? Does having an MD add weight to a comment about a Twin Comanche? Does your JD.....no, I won't go there! :)
As you may guess, I'm cynical about the benefit of adding a professional title in a case where the discipline doesn't imply expert knowledge about some field germane to the topic.
Using MD in an aviation field when discussing aviation medicine is prima facie appropriate and indeed, desired. Few would complain if that doctor talked about flying balloons or gliders. It's the MD who may be a dermatologist and never contributes to medical discussions that makes me wonder why they append MD to their signature line.
Well, I suppose that will make the doctors mad although that's not my intent. I'm more curious about the guy who says he was a professor of French or a Sergeant Major in the Infantry, as if that matters to the angle of attack discussion. Why, one could be a professor of extra-territorial intelligence - I guess that rates as flying high.
Yes, I have little to do today since the corn is laid by and the beans are waiting for another rain. I could go put my sprayer away for the winter.
 
jnmeade said:
Does a PhD in agronomy lend credence to a post about a Saratoga? Does having an MD add weight to a comment about a Twin Comanche?
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No, it typically lends no credence or weight to opinions about aircraft...but I've not seen the posters claim otherwise.

Actually, I don't see non-aviation credentials posted much in signatures anyway.
 
You see the same thing from some of the career military. Why a retired colonel’s opinion is about non-military matters is more valid than anybody else is I don’t know but I’m sure he thinks it is
 
"Mr. Smith, nice to meet you."
"It's DOCTOR Smith"
"Oh, general practitioner, neurologist, cardiologist...."
"I have a PhD in poetry."
"Oh, nice to meet you Mr. Smith"

F those people. Unless you are contributing in the medical field somehow, geneticist, etc...I am not calling you doctor. Even if it's science based (astronomy, physics, etc...) and not something utterly ridiculous.
 
EdFred said:
"Mr. Smith, nice to meet you."
"It's DOCTOR Smith"
"Oh, general practitioner, neurologist, cardiologist...."
"I have a PhD in poetry."
"Oh, nice to meet you Mr. Smith"

F those people. Unless you are contributing in the medical field somehow, geneticist, etc...I am not calling you doctor. Even if it's science based (astronomy, physics, etc...) and not something utterly ridiculous.
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I have an MSEE. I will be happy to call those folks "doctor" if they'll call me "master."

:D
 
Several years ago I went to see a specialist for pain in my little finger. While in his office I noticed many certificates and awards along with his degrees on the wall, so with mild curiosity I started reading them.

Right in the middle of the wall was a small certificate. I looked closer.

It was a certificate for good penmanship from the 6th grade.....
 
Btw, my late Uncle insisted on having the envelope for our wedding invitation to him state Doctor on it. I couldn't just put Uncle Dave. Some people are just that way.
 
I don't see too much of folks listing professional credentials other than MD, but then, they do that when signing up for tennis too (really, I've seen it). "JD" associated with a legal or regulatory topic would probably be frowned on by a lawyer's professional liability carrier and maybe by some overzealous state ethics committee as advertising. Someone once complained my signature block was too long - he's lucky I don't have a 2,000+ word block including disclaimers for everything from "not legal advice" to "no attorney-client relationship created" to "past accomplishments not predictive of future results," and on an on and on and on.....

My favorite story, though, was my best friend. He had just graduated law school with a JD. We went out to a celebratory dinner with his parents. He made the reservations as "Dr..." He figured he's never use the title again so decided to have fun with it.
 
For years when I was doing article peer reviews and the like, I'd get letters addressed to Dr. Natalie. I guess it's safer to call someone Doctor when they don't have a PhD than it is to potentially slight them when they do. A lot of these came from my former boss who would cross out the Dr. Natalie and write in Ron when he signed the letter.

In academia and religious contexts, it seems to be that anybody with a doctorate is referred to as doctor. In formal social contexts, only physicians are accorded that title.
 
My first two initials are MD and use them in my email. I've been asked more than once if I'm a doctor. :p
 
Strings of letters after a name varies with cultures and nationalities. Europeans, particularly Germans, are more inclined to string together a long list of credentials.
 
Half Fast said:
Willingness to play the lottery would be an indicator. It's effectively a tax on stupidity, or at least on mathematical impairment.
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Unless you win of course...

In which case the likelihood of you going bankrupt in 5 years or less is near 100%.
 
I dont even have my professional title on my work emails. For some people, its just a big part of 'who they are', I am not those people.
 
I have an acquaintance who puts DDS after his name because it is the name of the organization he works for. As expected, many people assume he's a dentist.
 
I think the credentials may be germane to discussion of some scientific and medical topics, particularly if the speaker is making an argument from authority. I try to avoid that sort of argument myself and instead focus on the issues and facts.

I can almost always tell which speakers have professional training in either science or medicine simply from how they approach the question of evidence and certainty in the discussion.

Someone mentioned intelligence, which is again another personal characteristic of the speaker and so not particularly germane to the validity of an argument. But it is true as a statistical matter that if you have to guess someone’s IQ, I was taught to take 100 and add 15 for every degree level past high school. That was some years ago though. Different numbers might be better now.
 
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flyingron said:
For years when I was doing article peer reviews and the like, I'd get letters addressed to Dr. Natalie. I guess it's safer to call someone Doctor when they don't have a PhD than it is to potentially slight them when they do.
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Exactly my policy. In professional correspondence, if in doubt, it is “Dear Dr. “
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Exactly my policy. In professional correspondence, if in doubt, it is “Dear Dr. “
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Really? I contact countless PhDs for research purposes almost always Physics. If they sign their correspondence with Dr before the first name I will happily use that from then on. Otherwise first name, last name.
 
I am not a Doctor but I did play one as a child.

If you have not healed a person or animal, I will not call you "Doctor".

Introducing yourself as "Doctor Jones" in a social setting that has nothing to do with your self-important education is asinine.

A good buddy of mine has the first name of "Dock". Not a nickname, his actual legal name. He was an Aviation Electronics Tech in the Navy. Fellow sailors would hear his friends calling him "Dock" and confuse it with "Doc" and end up asking him about the weird thing going on with their knee/shoulder/penis...
 
There was one full professor at Johns Hopkins with no doctorate who was quick to correct you if you called him Dr.
 
It’s similar to how people introduce themselves in social or business settings. Some people are really impressed with themselves and always want to use their titles to show just how important they really are, and they don’t understand the distinction between name and title. I sat in on a med-mal deposition many years ago and the plaintiff’s attorney asked the witness to state his name for the record. The witness replied his name was “Dr Myron Jones” so some such name. Plaintiff’s attorney asked again, state your name for the record and got the same response. Plaintiff’s attorney then demand the witnesses birth certificate to see if “Dr.” was part of his name which caused a lot of back and forth between the attorneys and upset the witness. As I found out later, this was a ploy that this attorney used repeatedly with Drs since it was certain to upset them and consequently they would make mistakes in the depositions. I do notice that when my oldest son introduces himself he never uses the title Dr although he is a fellowship trained and board certified orthopedic surgeon.
 
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