Are you saying that in order to be real or valid a person has to have a high falootin' degree and have papers published? How about 'the proof is in the pudding'? If he's got the goods, that's all he needs.
As entertaining as I find just sitting back and reading threads in this forum without getting invovled
... I simply can't let this post go.
Speaking as a Ph.D. scientist (org. chemist), 10+ years post grad, multiple papers, worked in academia, yada yada:
A person does not need to have a degree or have papers published in order to be real or valid. However, it is through the process of earning that degree, and doing that research to be able to publish those papers, that scientists are trained to recognize that what they have - the phenomenon - is real, and valid. My entire career, I've been trained to formulate theories based on observations and based on my extensive knowledge of chemistry; I know what is likely, and what is not, and how to test for certain mechanisms, and the value / meaning of various observations. I know how much "weight" should be given to certain data that I collect.
I won't dispute that there are occasionally people who are just...brilliant. Gifted. Not even human, in a way, in terms of their intellectual capacity. Doing calculus as a child, whatever. But they are extraordinarily rare. Crackpots are a dime a dozen.
Do you have any idea how many times I, myself (as a graduate student), or as an academic advisor (working with a graduate student), got really excited about a phenomenon we saw in the lab, and thought we were on to something, only to realize it was not revolutionary at all? How did we make that decision? We applied our scholarly training, our "high-fallutin' degrees". Everyone has career skills, no matter what your career is - mechanics know how to fix an engine, cops are good at reading people, etc. Scientists are good at distinguishing the "pudding" from the less-savory pile of goop because they have the training and the experience.
It's really, really, really, *really* easy to fool yourself into thinking you're onto something. It even happens to people like me. Professional lifelong scientists publish retractions of papers they've published, happens all the time. Slipped past them. Slipped past the three peer reviewers and the editor of the journal. Mistaken interpretation of data; we drew the wrong conclusion, etc. But this sort of thing happens *much* more often to random people without the years of training and skill collection that comes with testing and verifying scientific theories.
I would never dismiss someone who did not have formal training in science to explore science, or be curious about the world and its many exciting phenomena, never in a million years. But if a strange and unusual theory comes up, and it's up to some random guy or a trained scientist with published papers and a "high fallutin' degree" to investigate things, and get to the bottom of it?
I know where my money is...
