Chicken and Egg

[Kevin B. O'Brien]

Bruce Bostwick wrote:
> 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,
>>     
That is a case of something outside of their presumed knowledge. But I 
recall the Physics professor who seriously argued in a faculty meeting 
that we should submit grades carried out to 4 decimal places since the 
software used to record grades and compute GPA would carry its results 
to 4 decimal places. I don't see how you can be a professor in *any* 
science and not understand the idea of limits to measurement accuracy.

BTW, I was a professor of Economics at the time. I know some people like 
to claim that social scientists are "soft" and incapable of real 
science, but I instantly saw why his proposal was ridiculous.

Regards,

-- 
Kevin B. O'Brien         TANSTAAFL
zwilnik at zwilnik.com      Linux User #333216

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm 
not sure about the former." --Albert Einstein