More evidence that my theory isn’t a theory, but a law (here’s the link for reference). Scroll down a bit to read their CV’s.
ht to Ian Vaughan
More evidence that my theory isn’t a theory, but a law (here’s the link for reference). Scroll down a bit to read their CV’s.
ht to Ian Vaughan
Corporal,
Have you been drinking maz2’s Kool Aid?
Actually, I’d beg to differ with the Cap. Economics should be part of the WFC section.
Most economists today are indoctrinated in Keynesianism. They are taught that they must manage the economy with either fiscal or monetary policy. That to me, is worthless freaking crap and a big part of the problem.
What a crock. A bunch of unlettered morons trashing those who actually got off their asses and actually got an education.
If history was so easy, how come none of you mouth-breathers know any of it?
And, of course, social sciences and arts teach — at least at the grad level — research skills. No one here shows many signs of being contaminated with too many of those skills, or of much familiarization with great books or ideas.
One he!! of an enlightening post there, Captain.
Well, I’d put ‘criminology’ into a ‘worthless degree’. However, I disagree with Captain’s theory.
Why would anyone educated in the empirical hard sciences, operating in situations requiring lab tests, developing new technologies, chemicals, etc go into a career that operates outside of them?
So, I would think that history, law, political studies and yes, philosophy – especially logic etc, are good bases for such a career.
As for Jennifer Lynch, ‘learning how to research’ is hardly an upper level skill. Learning how to critically analyze research contents IS a skill, and the majority of our universities don’t teach such skills.
Any of the previous posters have a background in hard sciences? Any of you?
Here’s a hint, if you’re producing reports about what the company spent last year – you’re not producing anything real.
Math
Nursing
Agriculture
Engineering
Biology
Economics
POLICE Science/Criminology
Votech
Physics
IT
Captain: Seriously? you think these are the only areas worthy of study? I have met lots of idiots who have studied these things.
And if I remember correctly, Churchill studied a bit of Philosophy in his time.
Usually you make sense. But today you make no sense. FWIW, my undergrad degree was in history. Do you want me even to get started on the havoc created by idiots who do not understand history?
And economics. Yup. No idiots there.
Give your head a shake man.
These guys set policy. Directors go by the policies these guys create. People that do the job find a way to work around these policies. The Directors don’t want to know the policies are being worked around because stuff is getting done. If they do find out and insist on compliance they have to answer why stuff isn’t getting done. How things that work, work.
The Barter System was the best way to put a value on one’s worth.
Trade you a freezer of food for a roof on my house? Done
Trade you a heating system if you fix my car? Done
Trade you jet transportation for math tutoring? Done.
Trade you some Philosophy readings if you correct my vision? mmmm, I’ll get back to you on that.
What group of government educated and government employed wastes of lives. Not one of these national leaders has ever held a job not associated with slopping at the public trough.
Jennifer Lynch: I, as an engineer, am overawed at your depiction of the research skills of the advanced social degrees! Let me ‘splain somenting to you and your parochial outlook on social degrees. They are like the same in disease in that they are hard to cure and often with us always. The liberal and social degree programs have only marginal research skills. Thus, the ongoing revisionist history with no one brave or knowledgable to challenge the PC versions.
Social degrees are the result of trying to educate the un- or marginally educatable. Their resulting use are the result of makework programs. Fifty years ago, only the top 15% went to college, they became what we call professionals. This whole trend towards creating a demand for watered-down social degrees when we convinced the not-so-smart that they too could be “professional”, they just had to get the magic degree.
ET is disingenous, yet again. If research is so easy, why is a PhD a research degree? And, of course, she dodged my point about the shabby research that’s so often cited around here.
But then, ET never earned a degree in one of the Captain’s “useful” fields of study. But she won’t bother to defend her discipline. Classy.
I enjoy the premise but have to take exception to some of the inferences. When young and working my axx off to build momentum for living life, a favorite cousin was pursuing a PHD in philosophy. He was a useless hippy and died very young as a result putting me off philosophy for some time. When my interests broadened and philosophy came to my attention, it was a profound experience and served to integrate an entirely too eclectic knowledge base. Logic and Philosophy should be mandatory during high school and bachelor degree pursuits.
I have to agree with the captain, hard science contributes the most to society.
Yeah, Captain, three borderline examples pretty well lock it up.
Jennifer Lynch: “And, of course, social sciences and arts teach — at least at the grad level — research skills.”
I’ll leave the liberal arts out of it, but the social sciences? I don’t think they do even the little that you’re claiming for them.
“Jennifer Lynch” wrote: “What a crock. A bunch of unlettered morons trashing those who actually got off their asses and actually got an education.
If history was so easy, how come none of you mouth-breathers know any of it?
And, of course, social sciences and arts teach — at least at the grad level — research skills. No one here shows many signs of being contaminated with too many of those skills, or of much familiarization with great books or ideas.”
Damn, that’s one fine troll!
Oh that social research at the graduate level. Most memorable moment in undergrad (out of dozens of run-ins with them): Some poor soul attempting to use real data to prove increased government funding improved health care delivery. Didn’t like the way the numbers were turning out, so came to a friend of mine for help. Grew more frustrated that the economist couldn’t get the numbers to work in favor of the thesis. Consequently refered to me. Same results with some addtional complexity thrown in. A little lesson in logic.
Said student dropped the program. “What do they expect? This is an art, not a science!” Last I heard, a career was obtained at a ski hill. Great parties there.
This sorry story happened to me several times per semester, and continues a few times a year to this day.
I only convinced one enterprising Public Policy student to give up a “promising” career in the public sector: switched to the energy sector on the premise that if you don’t produce, you are nothing. Makes more money than imagined. It’s the best way to contribute to society. I considered even one a victory.
My friends and I gently joke in private over agenda driven statistics, especially after a few beers. Those guys have no fear in requesting anyone with a functional skill to suppress data to get the answer they want.
Ron in Kelowna: What happens when the guys who have what you want don’t want the stuff you have?
I think I prefer the modern world, thanks very much.
hey, jennifer, how about using some critical thinking and logic?
Are you saying that because a PHD is an ‘advanced degree’ that this means that ‘research is hard’? Sorry, but the two statements aren’t logically or empirically correlated. All that an ‘advanced degree’ means is that it is obtainable only after getting a bachelor and master degree. The term says nothing about the difficulty of the research involved.
I’ll repeat. A PHD in the humanities and social sciences can be quite easy to obtain.
Are you also asserting that getting a degree in the hard sciences is ‘not an education’?
And what is the empirical evidence, based on your support for research skills, that leads you to assert that ‘no-one here shows many signs of being contaminated with too many of those skills, or of much familiarization with great books or ideas.” How about some proof!
And what about your assertion that none of us knows anything about history? How about some researched proof.
And, using critical thinking, could you defend your descent into ad hominem? Thanks.
Dang, these are lifelong feeders at the public trough. Chances are their pensions and golden parachutes will not require them to be greeters at Walmart at retirement.
Something tells me that the Jennifer Lynch posting here isn’t the same one from the CHRC that is avoiding Ezre Levant like the plague.
I wish trolls could be original at least.
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Franklin
John Adams
James Madison
George Washington
All losers because they didn’t get their degree in engineering or IT.
I simply refer the whole thing as “real” jobs vs. “pseudo” jobs.
More and more kids align themselves towards “pseudo” jobs. Mostly direct government jobs or government funded, semi private jobs and I’m not talking about the guy who patches city streets either. These types, I consider “real” jobs within “essential” government run services although they could easily be contracted out to the private sector thus be cheaper to taxpayers.
“Pseudo” jobs are voted in everyday by ever expanding governments who’s main drive is to grow ever more powerful and create an army of faithful (Slave?) worker voters.
Try to convince a high school boy to align himself with a trade like plumbing or carpentry…He’ll mostly sneer at you with the “Who do you think I am?” look on his face. He’ll certainly consider a government desk job in which he would be in charge of “strangling” the job of the plumber or carpenter with regulations and control though. This being the essence of the problem with more and more “pseudo” jobs.
The Captain said, They go into public office FIRST AND FOREMOST for themselves and NOTHING as noble as public service.
How true. Government workers go in every day to make money, no different than anyone who works for, or owns, a private business.
There is nothing wrong with that. People just need to understand it and not delude themselves into thinking otherwise.
Before we dive into the tank completely on the side of hard scientists, I’ll mention something I wrote a week ago or so in another thread.
The Head of a Biology Dept at a major university in this country recently told me that the chances of a scientist at a Canadian university receiving funding from the National Science and Engineering Research Council would probably be nil if his/her research was based on scepticism towards global warming or its anthropogenic origins.
Does that affect our opinion about “useful” and “useless” educations?
All educational systems and all disciplines can be corrupted. That doesn’t mean that the disciplines or educations are inherently useless or stupid. They *may* be, but for different reasons.
I think the whole “worthless degree” meme is false. For example, most people would exclude maths and economics from this list. However, maths wrecked economics and, depressingly (no pun intended, but it’s a good one), the dominant economics, again, is Keynesianism, which was supposed to have been totally discredited in the 1970s stagflation — a Keynesian impossibility.
Government is the greatest most reliable growth industry in the world. For this reason, the “social sciences” are in high demand. And for this reason, the intellectually banktupt Keynesian economics is in the ascendancy.
Paul Krugman has a PhD and a Nobel prize in economics. But yet, as my father observed about Trudeau 40 years ago, “he doesn’t understnad economics”.
So, today, the claim that John’s economics degree is worthier than Mary’s sociology degree is a highly dubious one.
Moreover, the earlier, great multi-discinpled economists like von Mises were considered socioligists as well as philosophers. And as Murray Rothbard observed mathematics brings NOTHING to the study of economics, properly understood.
Cap, looks like your theory has merit: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=1709248
Not one job between them.
I’d rather be governed by the first 100 names in the phone book.
MJ – I agree with you about funding from NSERC. But that’s because our sole research funding program, which funds both NSERC (scientific) and SSHRC (social science and humanities) in Canada is government run and has been totally corrupted.
We have been so heavily taxed and run as a socialist redistributive economy that we have disabled the development of an Investor Class, who can set up private foundations to fund research. Therefore, all research is left to the government and our government is ‘socialist and left-oriented’.
It is extremely difficult to get innovative and risk-taking research funded in Canada. The Old Guard who run the programs and review the applications fund ‘safe’ non-competitive research, work that won’t put their own results into question. As a result, Canadian research in the sciences is badly out of date and the research in the social sciences and humanities is a joke – pure description or heavily postmodern 1980’s musings.
There are several disciplines which I consider valuable for ‘being able to think’ in our modern world.
These include history – including the development of political structures; analytical (not postmodern) philosophy and particularly including all forms of logic; ecological anthropology which focuses on adaptations to environmental realities; geography, which focuses also on environmental realities;..and biology..which focuses on adaptive processes in complex adaptive systems. I think that mathematics is, like logic, a symbolic form of reasoning and see no problem with a basic knowledge in this area!
Did you ever wonder what a PhD in English Literature gives to the world? Einstein (PhD in physics) gave us the Theory of Relativity. James Watson, a biologist and Francis Crick, a geneticist discovered and modeled the double helix known as DNA in 1953. Frederick Banting, a doctor, and Charles Best a medical scientist (he had a degree in Physiology and Biochemistry and was completing his studies to become a doctor) discovered insulin. There are other great leaps in science and knowledge with a direct benefit to humanity that PhDs in the sciences have given to society. However, can anyone, and I’m asking those with advanced degrees in the Humanities and the Arts, to point to a few “discoveries” made by these types of PhDs.
I was blessed with the capacity to study engineering/sciences, however, I erred and studied in the Arts. After four years, a double major (Canadian Studies and Economics) and a minor (Business Administration), I came away with the idea that these types of degrees are really fairly useless and do not add to the wealth of human knowledge. I’ll send my kids to community college to learn a trade before I encourage them to pursue university degrees that are inconsequential. I should have listened to my dad when he told me to study engineering.
~~favill~~
A couple of points:
I can empathize with the Captian in how the “hard” degrees seemingly contribute more than the “soft” degrees. But I don’t, or can’t, concur wholeheartedly.
Sure, the “hards” contribute to the overall capacity of an economy to output more GDP, ie faster computers, increased transportation, better infrastructure etc. I will grant that there are many in University today taking “soft” degrees that ought not to be there. Rather they’d be doing themselves and their country a valued service if they learned a ‘trade’ instead. Unfortunately, over time, we’ve grown accustomed to the notion the University follows HS.
I went into the Navy, ie government, to serve and not for some self-serving motive. If there was ever a group that can see somethng bigger than themselves, it would be those who wear their country’s uniform. My point being that not all enter government for selfish reasons.
Watch Mr Holland’s Opus where he slams the principle over pending cuts to Holland’s music program, suggesting that the engineering students won’t have anything to do after work because there won’t be any Arts students to produce the music, art or literature that enriches all our lives.
And finally, one of PMSH appointments has a Master’s in Management Science. MS includes a ton of calculus, math, and probability theory. So don’t did it! 😉
In conclusion (can you say that in a ‘comment’?), IMO a well blended team of professionals with backgrounds in ALL disciplines is the way to go. Unfortunately, as the Captain so eloquently postulates, many “hard” degree owners don’t bother to go into government.
ET: I’m not going to disagree in general with the first part of your post. But you seem to sidestep my main point: how can we have confidence that people working in the hard sciences in Canada (and the situation is probably true in many other western countries) are conducting their research objectively and are pursuing the truth wherever their research may take them, given what I told you (plural) in my post? Doesn’t this cast a shadow over the current practice of these disciplines? And does the problem I’m talking about start with the funding councils (not to say that they aren’t problematic) or with the scientists who have allowed the interests of their careers and their political beliefs to get ahead of their interest in the truth?
You seem to want to let the scientists off the hook on this one, and to blame the “system,” though I may be misreading you.
Einstein gave us the bomb. Some think it guaranteed peace, but I am not so sure.
favill- there’s the study of logic, which is the basis of our ability to reason critically, rather than to come to conclusions based only on our current emotional feelings.
The study of logic, by the way, and how intelligent systems develop the referential capacity to anticipate and control their interactions with their environment is the basic of artificial intelligence systems.
Your supposition that only if a person ‘discovers’ a new chemical or physical or biological process, that this alone benefits mankind, ignores that our beneficial lives require some understanding of history, of how we have organized ourselves as communities. And how these modes of organization are related to the ecological realities of their environment; of the role of demographics in societal organization..and so on. None of these are discoveries, so to speak. They are merely analyses of reality.
The Cap’ns premise is intriguing, but the evidence cited is confusing. We wouldn’t expect people in senior management to have taken advanced studies in management? Also, the notion that people educated in the so called ‘hard sciences’ are somehow better able to differentiate between valid and dishonest research conclusions flies in the face of experience. As soon as a wee bit of self interest is in play, “hard science” professionals are no more able to evaluate the validity of research conclusions than the cleaning lady. AGW is to my mind one choice example. Medical research, where it seems that most of the time correlation does indeed equate to causation, is another. Or the universally accepted (but unsupported) idea that spanking is on the whole harmful to children. On I could go. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but that has more to do with the character of person than than it does training. It is a rare individual who is able to look at a complex argument and see something that genuinely challenges what they want to be true.
Favill: I’m sure no civilized person truly believes that the world would be the same place without music, art, architecture, literature. Man doesn’t live by bread alone, and any significant contributions in those fields enrich our lives. That’s why Vitruvius and EBD spend time choosing their selections every night!
But I do want the engineers to build our bridges well.
PhilM: “Watch Mr Holland’s Opus where he slams the principle over pending cuts to Holland’s music program, suggesting that the engineering students won’t have anything to do after work because there won’t be any Arts students to produce the music, art or literature that enriches all our lives.”
It’s a fallacy to assume that the people who are contributing seriously to music, art and literature are Arts students, or contribute to these fields by virtue of their University education.
I left school to go to work when I was 16 with most of my grade 10 completed. 10 years of the school of hard knocks later I took a series of tests to determine my education level. The results said I had the equivalent of 1.2 years of university. I then wrote the GED exam’s and obtained a mark that was better then 95% of grade 12 grade who wrote the same GED exams.
Knock one up for the school of hard knock’s. Did Henry Ford not have just his grade 4?
mj – you are right. Scientists shouldn’t be left off of accountability, but a great many of them, even trained in the ‘hard sciences’ are basically researchers working in a group rather than innovators, which requires risk-taking, dissent and questioning exploration. A great many people working in the sciences aren’t prone to this mindset.
So, a lot of them will join a research team, already funded in a theme approved by the government agency, (and looking for more funds), and simply go along with the research program. They don’t question the basic axioms of the research.
After all, if I use only one example in biology, the dominant ideology in biology is molecular and reductionist and a graduate will usually accept this without question. Plus, anyone who works outside of this mindset won’t get funded.
And some will try to start their own research team, but as I’m suggesting, the research pool in Canada is a small one, and it can be difficult for innovative projects to get past a review board.
My own experience has been, looking for innovative work in biological information processes, and complex adaptive systems of adaptation and evolution – that it is almost impossible to find anyone in Canada with these research areas. We had to find them in the US and Europe, particularly Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany. Why would this be?
I’m putting it down to our university programs and the funding of research, which both become reified and frozen. I’d bet if there were private funding agencies, then innovative work would emerge, to compete with the old guard government agencies.
Ah, Fast Eddy says PhDs in social sciences are easy to get. This time, I can’t argue with her logoc. After all, she got one, so it really can’t be too hard.
ET: And for all those PhDs and MAs in history a number of whom are in the government’s employ…we see the president of the USA repeating the very same economic mistakes that FDR made at the onset of the Great Depression and he mimics the exact reactions as Chamberlain did with Hitler. And if one supposes that logic is the result of years of intellectual pursuits why is our society, which has more university educated people in the history of mankind, the author of laws and policies which are abhorent to the ideas of free thought and free speech? I was always under the impression that the prize in the pursuit of knowledge was freedom.
MJ: I take your point about music, the arts and literature. Ths would be a bleak world indeed without them. However, as you pointed out a fine musician or artist or author does not need a PhD to write music or create art which moves the soul, or to write literature that stirs passion or evokes deep thought. The old adage “those who can – do, whilst those who can’t- teach” (or in this case – study) comes to mind.
~~favill~~
Further to my argument about the restrictive role of funding in defining the nature of science in a country, MJ, consider the criteria for an NSERC award, where to evaluate the merit of the applicant’s proposal, the evaluator has to consider if the
“Proposed research program is clearly presented, is original and innovative and is likely to have impact by leading to advancements and/or addressing socio-economic or environmental needs.”
As far as ‘original and innovative’, these are difficult to assess. All research rests on other research, and we can’t always be rejecting past work. But notice the criteria about ‘advancing or addressing socio-economic or environmental needs’.
Why ( and how) does a theoretical analysis of information processes in plants have to somehow lead to human socioeconomic and environmental needs?
favill, aren’t you assuming, without evidence, that because our society has people educated in history, that they somehow affect the decisions made by the uneducated Obama and his backroom boys?
And logic isn’t the result of years of intellectual pursuits; logic is a specific branch of philosophy that focuses in the study of valid and invalid reasoning. Syllogisms, propositional and predicate and modal reasoning, for example.
The majority of people in government, I suspect, have never even been exposed to valid and invalid reasoning. You can see that in their rhetoric, when they mix up universals and particulars.
Or or even, their flaws of so-called ‘informal reasoning’, as exemplified in, for example, Obama’s equivalence of ‘spending=stimulus’ or, his ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ (Blame Bush) or his emotional appeals, eg, argumentum ad amicitiam of “I’m your friend, so what I say is true”. And his frequent ‘argumentum ad misericordiam’ (appeal to pity) which includes his not being able to sleep at night because of his worries.
ET: “As far as ‘original and innovative’, these are difficult to assess. All research rests on other research, and we can’t always be rejecting past work. But notice the criteria about ‘advancing or addressing socio-economic or environmental needs’.”
Yes, very troubling criteria. You’ll be aware, however, that these criteria originated with political pressure — a string attached to a satisfactory level of funding for NSERC (and for SSHRC in its own ways).
In other words, scientific study in Canada has become, and has allowed itself to become, politicized, to its great detriment (and shame).
The Captain’s list needs to be reconsidered, I think.
We had 2 running gags at engineering school:
#1 There are 2 kinds of people in the world: there are engineers, and those who WISH they were engineers
#2 What’s the difference between a physicist, an engineer, and accountant and an artsie?
The PHYSICIST looks at a thing, and says, “What is the theory that makes this thing work?”
The ENGINEER looks at the same thing, and says, “How can we make this thing more efficient, and mass-manufacture it?”
The ACCOUNTANT looks at the thing, and says, “How can we manufacture it cost effectively and make a tidy profit?”
The ARTSIE says, “Would you like fries with that?”
😉 Just sharing a laugh or two, and not trollin’. I’ve had a few debates on this topic with my wife, who’s a music grad, and after those discussions, I don’t need others.
But if there is only so much dough in the post-secondary school system, I’d rather we keep our technical and science schools afloat, as they ARE graduating students who go on to add to the GDP of the nation. I’m not certain how somebody schooled in Women’s Studies, or LGBT Studies add anything to the nation except another body to the EI line.
However, I DO believe that high school students should be trained in debating skills (particularly in the recognition and defeat of logical fallacies), and in economics (and not the keynesian babble, either, but the Austrian & Chicago School brands).
mhb23re at gmail d0t calm
I think the Captain is completely wrong. You can’t tell a book by it’s cover as the old saying goes. The problem in government is there are far too many theorists and not enough realists.
And ‘no degree’ should be well represented. More people who have worked their way up the ladder without the boost a degree gives one. Five years in the military (or Police) beats any Law or Arts degree many times over. In Government you don’t need to know the Law, you need to be able to read the Ass*ole across the table from you and know when you’re being sh*tted.
A resume filled with “Served on x Board” is the resume of a theorist, and not a hard-as*ed doer.
I agree with mhb on several points, especially high school. One only has to look at the credit problems of today to realize that a few classes in bankbook balancing, realities of credit cards and everyday life skills would have come in handy.
If taking an artsy fartsy degree helps one learn critical thinking and to hone the ability to learn then I have no problems. To expect to make instant money in the working world upon graduation is something else. It is a fact that there are so many jobs out there for art history majors or womyn’s studies.
A friend of mine took some art history, not to add to his job skills but rather it was something that was of interest to him. There is a difference in what one does or expects from their educational experience.
No amount of bankbook balancing will fix credit problem. It exists not because people have no idea how to balance income with spending. They do! What they lack is self discipline to refuse excesses. This has nothing at all to do with education, rather with upbringing.
To prove my point about PC revisionist history – The founders of the United States did not live in a time of necessity for formal degrees. However, even this ol’ country boy knows that Ben Franklin was Dr. Franklin to you, George Washington was a professional surveyor (considered a profession), Thomas Jefferson was a man of all seasons, but probably best known as an Architect.
Einstein did not invent the atomic bomb. Try Oppenheimer, Teller, Bethe, and uneducated folks like that. The United states is full of social PhDs “earned” by draft dodgers that were given passing grades by liberal professors to keep them out of the draft during Vietnam.
I could keep going about all the mistakes the social degreed PC types are making in their comments, but I’m running out of room and patience!
Here’s a thought. I’m just a dumb-ass machinist from red neck country, but better than 25 years ago I postulated a theory that recently was nominated for a Nobel Prize in economics. Namely, that the science of economics has to somehow account for the general mood of the populace, and how that broad outlook can be affected by non-economic factors. The synopsis of the theory reads almost word for word what I’ve been saying since not long out of high school.
It’s also worth noting that, just after reading a particular novel by James Michener some 20 years back, I hypothesized that it’s likely that by 2025, there would be more Spanish speaking Canadians than French, and that we may as well end our fixation with language laws as Darwinian dynamics virtually assures that my grandchildren will likely be speaking a brand of English with Spanish inflections not unlike what one hears in Utah, Idaho, and even Montana.
I’m not exceptionally well educated, or even bright, and I’m certain that others have had the same observations about society.
The point here is that “Jennifer Lynch” suggests that a university education is vital to such skills as research and analysis. I call bullshit, and say that public leaders need to be exceptionally well-read people on a number of subjects. They should have a broad base of knowledge that might be thin, as opposed to a deep but narrow one.
I leave you with this- any NASCAR fan can probably tell you within a few moments of thinking about it, why the RAF at one point was trying to get as many left-handed pilots into the air as possible during the early days of WWII.
Can “Jennifer Lynch” tell us?
The fields of study in the Captain’s list all suffer from a common denominator: they are all subject to BS’ery. It is relatively hard to argue about the mass of an electron, or how much stress a steel I-beam can take. With a few bits of knowledge, these can be tested and studied and believed. It is relatively easy to argue the merits of multi-cultural programs on inner city minority groups. What were the influences of various religious groups on the develpment of Middle East governments in 1000 AD? I have a friend who wrote an English thesis on the use of Insect Imagery in Post Colonial African Literature to describe Aparthied.
Who can argue about these last points? They are all based on opinion! These soft subjects are easy to water down, so the Universities can sell more product to people who shouldn’t be at university. Some “soft-subject” people are needed to make the world stay sane, or examine issues that can be taken for granted, but Not everybody gets to be an astronaut, or Prime Minister, despite their wishes. People enjoyed the prestige and respect that came along with advanced degrees, and forgot that their predecessors had actually earned that prestige and respect and had a degree given to them. The prestige and respect were not there because of the degree.
And my guess is that Left-Handed pilots reacted “left-wise”, instead of “Right-wise”, foiling the reactions of pilots who expected pilots to react “right-wise”.
As an engineer called Shakespeare, I say: “Kill all the arts graduates, then the lawyers” 🙂
Fred R. at June 18, 2009 8:50 PM “….subject to BS’ery…”
Fred, you miss the point. The point of these BS degrees is to certify that a student of these subjects is an inductee into the professional world of BS, which, unfortunately, is most of modern government….In the mean time, the government steals our money.