I was referring to the work one has to go through to get your research recognized in the scientific community, for example. I'm not "worshipping" science.
I had in mind people who go on planes to disprove the earth being round, who believe crystals have actual healing powers, or people who refuse proven cancer treatment.
In my case, I went to school to become a musician. Got a master's degree in music performance, but got tired of working hard and earning very little.
I self taught computer science and programming, so now I have a good salary and a much more comfortable life.
I feel my bachelor's was pretty special since it was a liberal arts degree and my employer seems to recognize the difference between me and someone who didn't go to school and/or just studied STEM exclusively.
I was very lucky to have scholarships, that made it easier on me when I was younger. But wanting to go back for CS made it impossible later in life without getting in debt. And I refuse to get a student loan. It's sad that when someone didn't get lucky with a well off household or scholarships, they have to cripple themselves into debt.
I went to school for such a degree. While I don't use it in my day to day now, I still consider it priceless. There's some inherent value added to a person who pursues to study a bit of humanities, history, philosophy and art in college apart from their major. Scholarly work really helps shape the way you look at life for the better.
Part of this is that you really understand why you need to trust academic work for general human advancement. We have too many people thinking it's okay to discredit scientists and scholars because they don't understand how research works.
I had in mind people who go on planes to disprove the earth being round, who believe crystals have actual healing powers, or people who refuse proven cancer treatment.