Who are the SEO experts?

I was recently asked what kind of certification I had in the field of SEO. This question piqued my curiosity into what kind of certification there could be for SEO... and a few minutes later I discovered a list of sites claiming to provide SEO certification.

But, to me, these sites just felt seedy and strange. I kept asking "who are these people?" wondering who had the authority to decide what were correct/ incorrect SEO strategies, and whether anyone cared about these certifications in the industry itself.

Then, I found this article on SEO Certification and it seemed to answer my question. Basically, I gleaned from the article that reliable SEO Certification is a myth - and that sites claiming to provide it have more chance of being a pyramid sales scheme than a genuine authority on SEO training.

How, then, can we prove we have SEO chops, if we in fact do? In the past I've always let search engine results pages speak for me... if a site you worked on is ranked in the top ten on SERPs - doesn't that prove your SEO expertise? Then again, I can see how maybe it wouldn't...