Chicken and Egg

[Bruce Bostwick]

I've seen firsthand the kind of damage a Ph.D. can do if there are no  
constraining factors.  Condensed version of the story: Geophysics  
professors should not attempt carpentry, especially if their idea of  
how to cut a 4x4 is with a circulal saw, and even more so if they  
don't see anything wrong with using a plywood blade to do it.  A dull  
one, no less.  And if they do it surrounded by their own students, who  
are acutely aware of how thoroughly the Prof is embarrassing himself  
but dare not speak up to point this out .. well, it's a sight to behold.

(I came within a few red hairs of going to my own car, grabbing the  
circular saw with the carbide crosscut blade on it, and finishing his  
20-minute odyssey of noise and smoke with a half-second zip through  
the offending board.  Self-educated gentleman-amateurs with a modest  
amount of engineering knowledge *do* tend to make decent carpenters.   
Especially if they grew up around fathers whose lifetime hobby was  
carpentry.  There's at least one garage I helped frame that is well on  
track to outlasting the house it was built for.)

On Jul 17, 2008, at 5:48 PM, Kevin B. O'Brien wrote:

> Some of the dumbest people I ever met had PhDs and were teaching.
>
> Regards,

"Thank you all for coming around to the self-evident point I made five  
minutes ago." -- Toby Ziegler