are we to ready to accept any crackpot theory offered by a Ph D?

Surely not. There are already too many crackpot theories in too many fields and many of them thought up by PhDs.

However, if research and study and cautious scrutiny should be replaced by anecdotes like I OTOH from my grandfathers generation having FIRST hand accounts which I have absolutely no doubt about we go a dangerous way of knowledge acquisition.

Wolfgang