ill. A *competent* plumber is similarly useful when your exterior sewer pipe snaps at the building entrance (DAMHIKT). There is no shame in working with either hands or head (or both), but we're responding to your earlier question: Can intelligence and education be inversely proportional? The answer is an emphatic yes, the *can*, and these days, often are.
I was educated both in the academy and at the end of the boot of some tough working guys in the trades. Each had its merits. The tradesmen taught me a work ethic. The academics taught me how to think abstractly. Among the academics, the scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, and theologians were my most compelling professors (with the theologians being far and away the broadest and smartest of the bunch). The professional educators were the worst of the bunch. By observation, a lot of the academics in the fuzzy studies (sociology, clinical psychology, hyphenated Americanism, revisionist History, and so on) were nothing more than political drones doing no real research and teaching nothing of note. They more-or-less just mounted a nonstop assault on truth, beauty, learning, and knowledge. The various "theory" schools also did their part (deconstructionism, post-modernism, post-structuralism). The best way I can think of to clean the mess up in the modern academy is to remove all public funding from them. Parents will be disinclined to pay several thousands of dollars for a course in Post-Structuralist Feminist Theory or Amerikkka The Agressor, and other similar "classes" (speaking of sewers ...)