Situations like this reminds me of my favorite part of Brave New World:
> Not so much like drops of water, though water, it is true, can wear
holes in the hardest granite; rather, drops of liquid sealing-wax, drops
that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till
finally the rock is all one scarlet blob.
This doesn't wear a hole into what a PhD is and erode away the foundation. It smothers it in something else, and slowly but surely we're not left with a rock, but one soft blob of wax -- totally different from what a PhD is, but slowly enough that we still pretend we're dealing with what it was.
> Not so much like drops of water, though water, it is true, can wear holes in the hardest granite; rather, drops of liquid sealing-wax, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is all one scarlet blob.
This doesn't wear a hole into what a PhD is and erode away the foundation. It smothers it in something else, and slowly but surely we're not left with a rock, but one soft blob of wax -- totally different from what a PhD is, but slowly enough that we still pretend we're dealing with what it was.