His lack of education is relevant because when you have at least some understanding of the depth of complex systems, it becomes very hard to imagine that a self-taught person has enough knowledge to speak competently about multiple such systems.

This is so wrong it's not even funny. If Peter Norvig can say "One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree" [1], then surely you can admit that your statement is wrong.

[1]: http://norvig.com/21-days.html