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You get the idea. Ultimately, isn't a professional historian kind of an oxymoron? There can be a professional economist/military officer/lawyer, who applies their skills to history, but to itself, a historian is not a profession

A paleonthologist, anthropologist, archeologist etc. all have specific skills. They're scientists who can use scientific method (carbon dating etc) to a certain aspect of the past to speak of it with a measure of authority. A historian to me is about as much of a scientist as a priest or a politician. Maybe even less.

They're basically storytellers.

Which isn't to say that a credential makes a person automatically better at something, but as a general rule of thumb - yes, it does. I would not go to a mechanic to cure my cold and a therapist to fix my car. So why should I trust some old man/woman about history if he/she does not have credentials to speak with confidence about this or that field?