Academic questions

I chuckled at the non-academic and uneducated attempt to distinguish 'academics' from 'truly educated people.' Who determines this?

It's a statement of opinion. I determine it.

What skills are needed?

Experience working with both people who have interacted in the world of business and government, and those who have spent their entire lives on one side of a classroom or another.

What tests are used?

Why would there be tests? It's an opinion.

Who teaches the 'academics' and 'truly educated people'?

Academics are taught by academics alone. Truly educated people are taught by academics, people with real world experience, and their own real world experience.

Is 'real world' a term of art?

See definition number two here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=real%20world

Where is this 'real world'?

See above.

What constitutes 'more time in the lab'? Does this lab time test apply to all 'academics' or a subset of the group? What about the others?

This is poorly written. Clarify.

Is 'spit back' a technical term?

Out in the real world (see above), it means "repeat without questioning."

How do you test for 'dogma'?

%Dogma=%Conviction/%Falsifiability

How do you test for 'spitting back'?

%Spittingback = GPA/%CriticalThought

What is the relationship between 'a decade ago' and dogma?

The longer a person holds on to stupid ideas, the more dogmatic they are.

How would times of one year ago or two decades ago change the test?

It would not.

If something is not dogma, what is it?

Either error or reasonable belief.

Do academics "fancy themselves much better than the rest of mankind," or do particular geologists on this page happen to know more about geology than the EE proponent here?

Are those mutually exclusive?