Honey, I Finished The Internet

7 Replies to “Honey, I Finished The Internet”

1. Yup. Science, real science, is hard. A lot of experiments even if well conducted
   don’t prove anything. The quickest way to get an interesting result is to f***
   something up. A lot of experiments are dull. The important thing for a student,
   dull experiment or not, is to learn correct
   technique, and brutal honesty, so if something interesting does turn up it may be
   a real result. It takes talent to find a good problem, and skill and drive to make
   something of it.
   You can see why real scientists despise and detest “climate scientists”.
   If you’re not putting in 80 hours a week you’re a sluggard.
   And physicists drink the most coffee.

2. How about this as a thesis: “Your Butt From a Hole In the Ground: A Comparative Study”.
   Then watch how many people flunk that.
   The answer may surprise you.

3. Interesting article about budding academics. And right beside the article was a link to an interview with that academic par excellence: Richard Dawkins: “Some people find clarity threatening.”
   In the body of the interview was this exchange:
   RH: Nevertheless, there’s a gulf between the real you and the caricature Richard Dawkins. How has that come about?
   RD: I have two theories which are not mutually exclusive. One is the religion business. People really, really hate their religion being criticized. It’s as though you’ve said they had an ugly face, they seem to identify personally with it.
   For cutting edge insight Dawkins is without peer.

4. After working for 28 years in research at a university, I now understand why sports is so important, so popular.
   I now understand why we’re doomed.

5. I hate to be the wet blanket here but those are all undergrad theses. They’re not even supposed to be original research, just a demonstration that the student can research a topic that hasn’t already been covered in the curriculum and write a decent paper on it.
   Now, post-grad theses: there’s some ground for comedy, as there are a lot of fields where there’s so little going on that the master’s and doctoral theses get hella obscure.

6. That varies with the university and the department. Down here (NL) in physics we do ask the students
   to do something somewhat original, and some honours dissertations have resulted in publications.
   Most of our students who progress to a dissertation intend to go into research, and some of them are
   successful in it.
   I personally thought that the thesis on the Roman army to be potentially the most interesting. We know quite
   a lot about the Roman army in the late republic and early Empire, including its size, and probably more
   accurately than we know the overall population. And what was the ratio? What was the carrying
   capacity, provisioning etc., of which the Roman state was capable? We do know that war was a money-making
   proposition back then, mainly because of slavery – captives were worth hard cash and a lot of it. We also know
   (as Mark Steyn points out from time to time) that the British Empire was very light in its use of resources –
   he notes that the British ruled the Sudan with about 200 men!
   The Roman army remains of interest, partly because it was so very effective, and partly because modern military
   discipline was developed on Roman practice and principles (initially by Prince Maurits of Orange).

7. Well I know the Roman army is dead.
   Where’s MY degree?