You definitely want your doctor, optometrist, dentist to be licensed. You definitely want your wiring to be done by a proper electrician. You want your new building signed of by a licensed Engineer. Etc.. General carpentry is a little bit different, but those with proper apprenticeships are considerably more likely to be better, but in that case, it's not a guarantee.
The wikipedia article you presented as evidence has some troubling issues. Much of it is focused on the fact that 'without licensing' there's 'more growth' in the given field of employment, which is obvious and mostly beside the point: the issue is competence. When measuring quality they mention "find that occupational licensing of dentists does not lead to improved measured dental outcomes of patients, but is associated with higher price" - which is deeply disingenuous because it's likely related to specific kinds of licensing as oppose do the 'material issue of competence' which is the fact said dentists actually attended dental school. Can you imagine for a second someone giving you fillings, scrips, pulling out teeth, x-rays without having gone to dentistry school?
What the state needs to do is make clear which occupations are licensed, which are not, and the kinds of work that can be done otherwise. Replacing a doorknob or a water faucet may be a bridge too far for licensing requirements, but doing anything 'load-bearing' for example might be within the purview of regulation.
>>Please speak for yourself.
90% of any profession can be jury rigged by almost anyone. The remaining 10%, including the liability behind their actions, is why they get paid to do it for a living.
If you want to superglue your wounds and run your own electrical grid more power to you, but none of us are islands and you live within an insulated bubble created by the professional standards of those around you.
Yes, why don't you go have your appendix taken out by someone who 'saw a video on youtube'.
So let's just let anyone be a doctor then?
Tell you what: let's divide North America into two parts - you take the 'anyone with a pair of pliers can be a doctor 1/2' and I'll take the 'actual trained doctor 1/2' and we'll see how it works out.
Expert systems have been beating doctors in correct diagnosis rates for years, yet the ego of physicians will not permit them to save more lives, in a fact reminiscent of "expert" fund managers trying to beat index funds and failing miserably. I'd love to see a study comparing physician diagnoses vs random-110-IQ-person-doing-a-Google-search diagnoses. My money would be firmly on the rando+Google.
Additionally, doctors and their staff kill between 250k and 440k (depending on the estimate criteria) Americans annually via completely preventable medical errors, making them approximately as lethal as lung, breast, skin, colorectal, pancreatic, prostate, and liver cancer combined.
The results of licensure in the field of medicine certainly leaves much to be desired.
Unless I'm bleeding out or having a cardiovascular event, I'll take my chances with diet, exercise, Google and WebMD.
This is beyond pale, I can't believe I'm reading this.
Steve Jobs thought he was 'smarter than doctors' when they caught his pancreatic cancer quite early, but he decided to 'eat healthy' instead of starting treatment which could have saved him ... until it was too late? And you're talking about doctors egos? Now that's one giant dead ego.
First - said 'expert systems' are only used in isolated trials, they're not applied in the field in general medicine which is much more complicated.
Second - applied medicine is considerably more complicated than merely 'diagnosis'. Tell me which 'expert system' is going to remove your pancreatic cyst?
Third - your statement about 'doctors killing people' is not only unsubstantiated, their 'error rate' does not qualify as the 'death rate' of any specific condition, clearly, you've misunderstood the data.
Fourth - if we didn't have licensed medical doctors, people would be dying willy nilly of every kind of easily curable conditions, moreover, arrogant idiots who think they know more than doctors would be happy to sell all sorts of toxic medicine and procedures that actually cause considerable harm.
Finally - this recommendation against modern medicine for anything other than major cardiac conditions is insulting, it's actually worse than anti-vax propaganda.