I have observed that behavior in many other professions where the participants view themselves as very smart. Physicians and lawyers are at the top of that list.
I was chatting with a couple of software engineers, one of whom had just come from working at a research hospital on a project involving some imaging devices. The other engineer asked him if the physicians were tough to deal with, and he responded that no, not especially. But the physicists! Oh, the doctors hated the physicists for thinking they knew everything!
Indeed. Academicians are some of the worst offenders in my experience.
Also, you know how software engineers like to think that they're rocket scientists? Well, it brings me no pleasure to report that rocket scientists think they're software engineers.
