The “experts” have been shown to have feet of clay.
I think the people are starting to realize that some credential is not ipso facto proof of wisdom. Believe me, I have done a post-doc at Harvard, and I have seen a lot of educated idiots! They all had advanced degrees, and no doubt had high IQ. But many were still idiots…
Because idiot-dom has little to do with intellectual firepower. Some, but not a ton. There is no shortage of educated idiots. I think it is quite clear that the focus should be on competence, not credentials.
We have used credentials as a proxy for competence for a long time. But I think that is a mistake. And just how that can change is quite the puzzle. If there were an obvious solution, it would already be in place.