(Why this needed to be researched at all, much less by a publicly subsidized scholar rather than a bored marketing intern at Estée Lauder, isn’t clear to me.)

It’s not like anything visible may use such odd ideas as scaffolds or buttresses and create demand for them. The great enigma!

Phileas Frogg says:

I recently discussed this phenomenon with a good friend of mine and discovered we have developed the same practice to insulate ourselves against it.

We assume anyone, in any position of authority, obtained by way of credentials, is a fraud until they demonstrate competence.

The mandarinate design is inherently poisonous, because being given power through wearing the Ring (or even certificate for an appropriate Ring) eventually turns people into Ringwraiths. Just like theocracy kills faith, turning academia into a leg of the throne was bound to kill science institutions. «Oppression and the sword slay fast, thy breath kills slowly, but at last», indeed.

While the specific theology is saturated with a memetic immunodepressant: good old Inner Light, 1.00 per two legged creature with flat nails and no feathers.

How could this have any other result?

We assume anyone, in any position of authority, obtained by way of credentials, is a fraud until they demonstrate competence. The system is so broken that any thoughtful consideration obligates us to assume a tacit position of skepticism.

The system isn’t failing to signal, it’s inverting the signal it was supposed to send.

This was at an engineering college.