I'm not familiar with formal chef education, how much more experiment based is it compared to amateur cooking? With the latter, it's rare you'll find an online discussion about cooking that's settled with an authoritative reference, it's mostly people sharing anecdotes and their favourite recipes.
But most of those discussions are between people who haven't got a culinary education.
My point was that there are chef educations where you actually learn things that most amateurs only guess at. But, as Myhrvold's work shows, there are plenty of things that are not necessarily at the level of scientific certainty.
Formal chef education has the student in the kitchen with the instructors - and I suspect often the book is ignored until the basic principles and methods are known (at which point the book doesn’t need to detail them).
The most basic formal chef education in Norway is two years mostly of theory (yes, books) and then two years working in a kitchen. If you have ambitions you are now barely above the busboy on the pecking order.
You can get the same accreditation if you are able to document 5 years of relevant experience and are able to pass the written exams.
