ISTQB is a bad bad thing

ISTQB is a bad, bad thing. Reeeeeally bad thing. And here is why.

First of all, they certify something there are more than one opinion about. Something that has different approaches. Something that is poorly measurable since it depends on efficiency of decision making process. And decades of IQ testing and similar attempts to measure and control human brain and psyche proved it spectacularly inefficient.

Whatever you can read in ISTQB material is just an opinion and a book would suffice to share it. Unfortunately, royalties that only one or even several books can bring is nothing compared with certification system would bring. Basically, you bypass market competition by forcing people into buying books and paying for exams, and you do it by pressuring their employers into pressuring their employees.

What if test certification systems put us in a box to think inside it?

With vertical thinking one uses the negative in order to block of certain pathways. With lateral thinking there is no negative.
Edward de Bono, Lateral Thinking

Sometimes I get those anarchistic ideas that may, if voiced at inappropriate moment, seriously damage your reputation, unless you put them in a nice colored gift package of justification and proof. And though some may see this as creating a Pandora box, at the bottom there is always hope of finding an important clue or even leading yourself out of the dead end.

Today's one is the following. Let's say we limit access to any exams or certification systems for any tester with relevant hands-on experience under 2 or 3 years? The same way they do for MBA or certain levels of trainings for the system administrators? Mind you, not information, or books, or trainings, but certification. Because I strongly believe there is a huge difference between critically reading a book and drilling something in order to check certain boxes in test. 

Even if you are fully conscious about the fact that your own opinion is different. Or (which is worse) if you have no opinion and take things on faith. Testing is an activity of the scientific type, not a religious practice, and we need to be extremely careful with faith and our ability to say what you think. Test practice proves that a good tester needs to be honest and courageous, because sometime this is exactly what makes the difference between true and false.