Hey Sarq,

I will the second you tell us all your name. Again a nastly little minded comment by guy who is afraid to say his name.

Um you have no idea as to who I am and what I do for a living.

Unless you are willing to post your name you have no point to make. Have you ever noticed I have never said anything about what you do. Thats because I am not small minded enough to pretend I know something I have no idea about. Unlike you who is a constant nag of mindless verbal (written) attacks.

Are you that same old dude again posting under another name?

What value do your comments have to the topic at hand?

Gdm wrote: I think you’ve made some interesting points, but I sense a lot of hostility to those who have dedicated a substantial part of their life to graduate studies

No not the people just the old school of thought that if you go to university you know more. Your point about Albert was dead on.

But as for Quest I still say it has the potential to do wonders for people who do not fit the standard box.

You know, I try my best to stay off of these boards, but every once in a while a discussion comes up that I really feel the need to get involved in. Here’s what I’d like to address: Several posts have been made regarding the supposed expertise of those who hold advanced degrees- with the explicit suggestion that there are many people who, sans PhD, can do a better job; several have been made about throwing money away on research; several have been made about how academia is out of touch with the real world (the academics are assholes with their heads in the clouds argument).

These are good points- there is at least some truth to them- and they deserve discussion. I’ll take them in turn:

First, of course there are people who can, without a PhD, do the job of someone who holds a PhD. It’s just that, as in many fields, the degree is the official credential you need to take the job. You can theoretically learn to wield a scalpel without becoming an MD; you can learn about courtroom procedure without earning a JD; you can understand the stock market without an MBA- but if you want an advanced job in a field that requires one of those degrees, you’d better be able to produce it. While I definitely would argue that credentialling has gotten out of hand- e.g. I don’t think you need to go to university to work on the line- for some professions, I’m hard pressed to come up with a better way to determine if an applicant has the required skill set for the job.

Second- the claim that money is wasted on research. This is true: Government and private money is indeed used to finance work that goes nowhere, so it is, in a sense, wasted. However, wasting money is also a necessary evil of doing research. The simple fact is, a lot of research doesn’t work, and what does work is often incremental progress at best. Science moves in small steps, and it’s an awfully expensive business to finance. The question to ask is, is what we’re getting out of it worth the money we put in? Small advances will eventually become big advances- and let’s not forget that even if a project fails, the researcher who undertook it has presumably gained a valuable skill set that will enable them to continue in research in the future, hence even wasted money is investment in future research. I happen to agree that a lot of money is wasted. I think that there are better ways, more stringent ways, to decide who gets funding- but I also accept that wasting money simply has to continue if progress is to be made.

Finally- are academics arrogant pricks with their heads in the clouds? Some are, some aren’t. Simple as that.

By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m writing this as a candidate for a master’s degree in the sciences (defense is two weeks from today… I should probably be working on that instead of typing on here), so although I’m not a PhD, and I don’t have a ton of experience, I’ve been in and around the scientific/academic establishment pretty much non-stop for the last 6 years. Take that for what you will. I will grant you the system could be improved- but if you only look at the bad, you miss the good- and there’s quite a bit of good out there, too.

Alex

P.S. I understand that the major focus of this thread has to do with the new university in Squamish. I don’t have an opinion on this. I just wanted to take the opportunity to offer a counterpoint to some of the more negative swipes taken at academia.

Maybe you should explain what you are yapping about again.

What value does your comments have?

Nasty little minded boy.

harihari wrote:a)

Hari, you should read what you wrote before making any comments about me.

Anyhow.

What is your point about scientists? Not all PHDs are from mind blowing events. Why do we need to know how many times a fly sh its on Sunday?

I have never said anything about what value science has to offer society. Why do you feel I have?

Are we not talking about Quest and what it can do?

harihari wrote:a) One of the many things you get from a University education, Trad, is some skill in forming cohrent sentences. Some of us slower ones– like me– failed to learn to write in high-school, so Uni polished us up.

What value does your comments have This sentence has a verb-subject agreement problem (do), and it also needs a question mark.

Nasty little minded boy. Here, you need a dash between little and minded, which is a basic English usage rule. If you don’t add the dash, you get ambiguity– do you mean that the person you are addressing is nasty, physically small and minded (whatever that means), or that the person is nasty and small-minded?

b) Axel is bang-on with his science points. Karl Popper argued that science doesn’t prove anything right, but rather that it shows us what doesn’t work, and which ideas work well enough. E.g. we don’t know why gravity works– although we have lots of theories that describe its behaviour, quanitites, etc– but we DO know that it DOESN’T work because of innate spirits, the will of God, etc etc. Science might well be described as the clearing away of error (which a young Wittgenstein claimed was also philosphy’s job…before he got into the language games phase of his career). Popper said that all that could be claimed of a valid theory si that it had not (yet) been proven wrong.

Also, any scientist will tell you that most experiments don’t work…and this knowledge is useful. A friend of mine who does research in genetics says that 10% of things work…and then when you repeat them to see if they actually worked, or if it was just a fluke, 10% of THOSE end up working out. You have to knwo where not to look in order to know where to look, so to speak.

I copied it for you to re-read. I guess Uni never did you much good after all.

a) One of the many things you get from a University education, Trad, is some skill in forming cohrent sentences.  Some of us slower ones– like me– failed to learn to write in high-school, so Uni polished us up.

What value does your comments have This sentence has a verb-subject agreement problem (do), and it also needs a question mark.

Nasty little minded boy.  Here, you need a dash between little and minded, which is a basic English usage rule.  If you don’t add the dash, you get ambiguity– do you mean that the person you are addressing is nasty, physically small and minded (whatever that means), or that the person is nasty and small-minded?

b) Axel is bang-on with his science points.  Karl Popper argued that science doesn’t prove anything right, but rather that it shows us what doesn’t work, and which ideas work well enough.  E.g. we don’t know why gravity works– although we have lots of theories that describe its behaviour, quanitites, etc– but we DO know that it DOESN’T work because of innate spirits, the will of God, etc etc.  Science might well be described as the clearing away of error (which a young Wittgenstein claimed was also philosphy’s job…before he got into the language games phase of his career).  Popper said that all that could be claimed of a valid theory si that it had not (yet) been proven wrong.

Also, any scientist will tell you that most experiments don’t work…and this knowledge is useful.  A friend of mine who does research in genetics says that 10% of things work…and then when you repeat them to see if they actually worked, or if it was just a fluke, 10% of THOSE end up working out.  You have to knwo where not to look in order to know where to look, so to speak.