Hi,

My own bias is that a profession is any area of labor that cannot be routinized.

In my opinion, many professions labeled as such have subcomponents whose work is, in fact, routinized. I doubt filling cavities changes much from patient to patient. Atul Gawande's book Complications has a nice section about a medical clinic that performs one procedure, and one procedure only.

There may be some seemingly hard-and-fast rules at any point in time. Few medical professionals would advocate performing surgery in sewers. The rationale and logic seem self-evident. That said, bodies of knowledge are not static. Aristotelian physics is not Newtonian physics is not Einsteinian physics (so far as I know - in the spirit of full disclosure, I took "Rocks for Jocks"). For all I know, a hundred years from now, tremendous benefits will be found to accrue to those who undergo surgery in fetid, oozing piles of raw, untreated sewage.

Second, professions seek to increase the likelihood of getting the right answer: the best way to fill a cavity given people are different, the best way to win a battle given [fill-in-the-blank] is different, the best way to perform an audit given companies are different. Because of the ambiguity involved in these tasks, debate will ensue. The presence of debate is a sign of a profession.

Third, arguably war is the one area of human endeavor where professionalism is most likely to persist. One does not fight oneself; one fights an enemy, with all the action-reaction complexity that entails. I suppose companies will change, and thus best accounting practices will change too, but companies don't try to fight their auditors in the same way as two combatants do.

Fourth, none of this necessarily supports or fails to support military education of any sort. (Again, full disclosure: I have not served in the military.) I can understand the reasoning that it is better to learn from the mistakes of others than from one's own, and to ignore the lessons contained in books is to commit a grave error. I can also understand that there is no substitute for experience, and reading books can perhaps not only add but marginally to one's capabilities, but rather in fact detract from them. I can also see the argument that while both are important, one is more important than the other, and time and emphasis ought to be weighted accordingly. I'd simply point out, first, that education exists in varied forms across professions, and second, the absence of consensus over the optimal means of professional education does not negate the presence of a profession.

Regards
Jeff