From the witer's bio:
I’m a PhD student at Aalto School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. In general, I’m interested in evolution – specifically, how complex entities evolve over time.
FWIW, those who are shut out of centrally managed payment systems most definitely understand the point of Bitcoin. For example, see this recent article on Sci-Hub:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/8/16985666/alexandra-elbakya...
So yes - he is a professional blockchain researcher.
He finished his PhD thesis last year, and it's not unreasonable for him to have spent the past 15 months doing research on blockchain technologies, give the areas he works in.
With luck, my thesis will be complete in late 2017 – only three years later than I planned! The extra years have been well spent in researching and writing about environmental issues, particularly energy/environment nexus. This has resulted to two books in collaboration with Rauli Partanen: Climate Gamble and Musta hevonen.
When an author puts credentials in the title of an article, then credentials are on the table as a point of discussion.
I didn't say it was. I stated the thesis was finished. These are distinct.
The latter requires a defense of the thesis before a committee, and in pretty much every decent PhD program, is merely a formality since the advisor should not let the student defend until he/she is ready. I had my thesis finished long before I did my defense, and I passed that months before the PhD was conferred, which happens at graduation.
Here's [1] a speech given before his thesis defense, so I suspect he has passed his thesis defense. So either he got his actual PhD at the end of the term or is waiting to get it at the next term end.
>When an author puts credentials in the title of an article, then credentials are on the table as a point of discussion.
Neither PhD nor Doctor appear in the title or in the article. You brought up the PhD silliness. A PhD is neither required nor implied in this post.
You're still stuck on ad hominem. If you want to criticize, do so on the merits of the article, not strawmen you dig up.
[1] https://jmkorhonen.net/2017/12/15/necessity-is-the-mother-of...
I quoted the author's about page, which says nothing about block chain research. That quote happened to mention a PhD, which I could not care less about. Much more important is the fact that the bio page says nothing about block chain research.
It is you who seems intent on discussing the author's PhD, which you demonstrated in your first response - and your second.
I brought up the author's about page because the author implicitly appeals to authority in the title of the piece by claiming to be a "professional" "blockchain researcher." The article itself says nothing about this research other than it supposedly happened. Nor does it contain anything that I found novel or insightful.
The second part of my original comment speaks to the substance of the article.
A PhD is neither required nor implied in this post.
I never said this, nor do I care what letters appear after a person's name. But when that person tries to claim the mantle of authority in the title of an essay, looking into the author's background is fair game.
Neither the article nor the bio provide evidence that that the author is a "professional" blockchain researcher. The content of the article is mediocre at best, suggesting the author has a weak understanding of the topic at hand. I provided a specific example in my first response.
My professional opinion as a blockchain researcher I’ve spent the last 15 months researching the implications and possibilities of blockchains and related “distributed trust technologies” from a business and societal point of view.
And dirtyaura's comment consolidates the author is some figure we can trust mantra.
In the end, the article states that people should not put their savings into coins but smart contracts are nice. Something others have said before but it's more clickbaity to state that it's coming from a professional blockchain researcher.
An argument from authority goes: "I am an authority therefore the following is correct." This is nowhere near that.
He correctly stated it was his professional opinion that..... He didn't claim the argument is correct because he's a professional. And he is a professional, doing this work in a professional context for 15 months.
So it is absolutely correct to state "my professional opinion is...". He has likely put far more work into this, and certainly with better background and training, than probably anyone on this thread questioning his credentials instead of addressing his message.
From my quick skimming, mostly apo questioned the credentials. Yes, you are using ad hominem against the one you accused (rightly of doing so).
...
One 2017 PeerJ study estimated that Sci-Hub owned $268,000 in unspent bitcoin as of August 2017. (Though Elbakyan has publicly disagreed with that estimate, she hasn’t said how much she owns in bitcoin. She claims the exact amount is confidential.)