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styky
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 Posted: 07/ 13/ 08 8:10 pm Post subject: PhD ranks not for dummies |
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PhD ranks not for dummies
Sun, July 13, 2008
By Earl McRae
source
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion told a town hall meeting in St. Catharines that if he's elected prime minister, he'll be the first PM ever to have a PhD.
This was supposed to have the assemblage think "Oh wow, a PhD, Dr. Stephane Dion, our ills as a nation would be cured forever, what a bright guy."
The PhD that makes him a bright guy is in sociology.
It is not in history.
This we know because Dr. Stephane Dion, PhD sociology, bright guy, had no clue that Canada has already had a prime minister with a PhD -- William Lyon Mackenzie King.
A Liberal prime minister, by the way.
To which Dr. Stephane Dion, PhD sociology, would undoubtedly say: "Oh, c'mon, I'm a very bright sociologist, not a very bright historian, how can you expect me to know anything about Canadian history, or that of my Liberal Party?"
To give Dr. Stephane Dion, PhD sociology, the benefit of any doubt that a person with an esteemed doctorate degree could be anything less than a deep-thinking solid and balanced citizen of the highest intellectual order, the kind of people we need more of in society through the virtue of having a PhD that separates winners from losers, it is my distinct pleasure to bolster Dr. Dion's defence, and your trust, by presenting to you the names of some other prominent society-changing PhD holders in history.
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Dr. Ted Kaczynski.
PhD in mathematics from the University Of Michigan. Outstanding human being. Very bright person. So outstanding a human being and bright a person that he was honoured with a title. The Unabomber.
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Dr. Kenneth Lay.
PhD in economics from the University of Houston. Chairman and CEO of Enron Corporation. Outstanding human being. Very bright person. So outstanding a human being and bright a person that he was convicted of fraud in one of the biggest corporate scandals of our times.
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Dr. David Duke.
PhD in history. Politician, former member of Louisiana's house of representatives. Outstanding human being. Very bright person. So outstanding a human being and bright a person that he was also Grand Wizard of the white-racist Knights Of The Ku Klux Klan, and a convicted criminal who did time for fraud.
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Dr. Margaret Ella Richter.
PhD in math and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkley. Outstanding human being. Very bright person. So outstanding a human being and bright a person that she joined the Heaven's Gate cult and its mass suicide so she and its members could then be transported to the alien spaceship following the tail of the Hale-Bopp Comet in 1997.
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Dr. William Lyon Mackenzie King.
PhD in philosophy from Harvard. Outstanding human being. Very bright person. So outstanding a human being and bright a person that as prime minister he held secret seances to communicate with his dead mother, his dead dog, and dead Leonardo Da Vinci.
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Dr. Jack Layton.
PhD in political science from York University. Leader of the federal NDP. Outstanding human being. Very bright person. So outstanding a human being and bright a person that he can't get more than 15% of Canadian voters to believe in his policies nor more than 8.4% to trust his party with managing the economy and job security.
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Dr. David Carlyon.
PhD in theatre history from Northwestern University. Outstanding human being. Very bright person. So outstanding a human being and bright a person that he became a professional clown with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum And Bailey circuses, which should provide hope for Dr. Stephane Dion, PhD sociology, in that they are only one notch below the circus of which he wants to be the supreme clown.
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 BlawBlaw
Joined: 30 Jan 2006 Total posts: 6611 Location: Toronto, ON Age: 43 Gender: Male
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| Posted: 07/ 13/ 08 8:47 pm Post subject: |
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Smart people can believe in and do very dumb things. Being smart doesn't mean you have any common sense. When I was at UBC law school I was surrounded by some of the most intelligent idiots in the country.
In any event, doing well in school has little to do with intelligence outside of physical science, math and engineering; it has more to do with "getting with the program". You get a PhD in liberal arts and social science because a bunch of other PhDs (ie. professors) think that you think like them so closely that you deserve a PhD too. It is more a matter of ideology than intelligence.
But getting back to my passing mention of law school, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the first prime minister in at least a quarter of a century who wasn't a lawyer. Joe Clark has his occupation as "journalist" but he has an LLD (an honourary degree from Dalhousie in 2003). Similarly with Pearson and Tupper (who was an MD...a real doctor). You have to go back to Mackenzie Bowell, circa 1894 to find a prime minister who didn't have a law degree and was not a practicing lawyer. The only other prime minister who was not a lawyer and did not have a law degree was Alexander Mackenzie, in 1873.
Overall, only 7 out of 22 prime ministers were not lawyers: 3 in the 19th century, 3 in the 20th century, and Harper in the 21st century.
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Liberals don't have principles, just a point of view. |
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| impimp Gender: Unknown
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| Posted: 07/ 13/ 08 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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| In the circles I run in the only people with degrees beyond Bachelor degrees were people who couldn't cut it in the job marketplace. Essentially, obtaining a post-graduate degree is the equivalent of "shining a turd". |
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Felix Culpa
Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Total posts: 8225 Gender: Unknown
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| Posted: 07/ 14/ 08 9:29 am Post subject: |
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My friend's father is a university professor (computer science). He has a PhD, and hands out PhDs to other people for a living. He is not particularly impressed by them. He says getting a PhD is as much about having a good ass than a good brain, i.e. can you sit on your ass and study for 6 years straight? If so, you too can get a PhD!
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