The problem with that statement is how specific it is. There are many routes to credibility in a field that might be perfectly normal and consistent with mainstream science. Limiting it only to people with PhDs in the specific field from select universities is snobbery.
What if I had some interesting advance to present in the field of computer science, and I had plenty of data to back it up, and it got listed on Hacker News and my peers on this site reviewed it and agreed with my conclusions? But then I only have an EE degree, so that's a "red flag" because I "didn't make an attempt to engage with other scholars"?
Credibility is a difficult subject to pin down, but science is not an exclusionary endeavor. All you really need to be credible is the review of other credible people, and universities are not the only places to find such people. Similarly, lots of people use a PhD to give themselves false credibility.
No, it isn't snobbery. First, they're guidelines that trigger heightened scrutiny, not an automatic exclusion. If you had an important CS result, and could point to a credible CS community accepting your result, you'd have no problems because you could survive the scrutiny. If you couldn't point to a credible CS community accepting your results, then it's perfectly appropriate for TEDx to turn you down. They're a popularizer of current scientific consensus, not a publishing avenue or outlet for new discoveries.
What if I had some interesting advance to present in the field of computer science, and I had plenty of data to back it up, and it got listed on Hacker News and my peers on this site reviewed it and agreed with my conclusions? But then I only have an EE degree, so that's a "red flag" because I "didn't make an attempt to engage with other scholars"?
Credibility is a difficult subject to pin down, but science is not an exclusionary endeavor. All you really need to be credible is the review of other credible people, and universities are not the only places to find such people. Similarly, lots of people use a PhD to give themselves false credibility.