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I don't know how to say this without it coming across as baiting you or flaming you. I'm doing neither. What contributions have you made to the sum-total of hu

• abeppu 16y ago
  Even if this isn't baiting or flaming, it does seem to reflect skepticism -- which is fair. But I do think there are likely a lot of people who have contributed to expanding human knowledge without having done a PhD. I mean, lots of undergrad and masters programs involve doing your own original research project, and many more undergrads at least assist on research projects owned by others.
  • eavc 16y ago
    My question had nothing to do with the PhD as a privileged case. I just find the idea of learning something previously unknown very cool, especially as relates to knowledge that's useful somehow.
• lukev 16y ago
  That depends how you define it. My cat has a skin blemish on its paw. Does documenting this fact add to the sum total of human knowledge? Technically yes, but it's of no interest to anyone. But there's an even continuum between this and academic papers of great import - what if I figure out the best strategy to defend against a Zerg rush and post it on a forum? What if I figure out a really cool new programming technique and blog about it? What if I write an academic paper on obscure characteristics of hyper-complex non-euclidian non-reimannian Q-manifolds in P-time that has no ramifications for anything and is quickly forgotten? But then what if a tremendously important application is discovered 50 years later? Especially with the internet, what qualifies as human knowledge becomes completely blurred. Previously the qualification was probably getting published, but now anyone can make information available to anyone else and the rest of posterity.
  • silverlake 16y ago
    My dent is this comment. Suck it, Einstein!
  • kenjackson 16y ago
    I think all of those things you list are legitimate contributions to the body of knowledge. Just the bump you added was really really small in some cases.
  • eavc 16y ago
    All of your examples involve publishing, but even more incredible is the idea that that circle in the comic represents not just published knowledge but all that any human has ever known and that we can sometimes venture into entirely novel territory.
• dlsspy 16y ago
  Sure, I understand it's very easy to read that as me being arrogant (and I should've expected it). I certainly didn't mean it that way. I've written and given away tons of code. I not-too-rarely meet new people and find out that they've been using code that I've written in their production environments. I've also given away as much higher level information as I can in my blog posts, mailing list contributions, and on places like StackOverflow, here, reddit, etc... I'm not by any stretch of the imagination suggesting there aren't large numbers of people smarter than I am, but I will say without hesitation that it's wrong to consider the only way to increase the sum total of human knowledge is to grant someone a Ph.D.
  • pgbovine 16y ago
    I will say without hesitation that it's wrong to consider the only way to increase the sum total of human knowledge is to grant someone a Ph.D. agreed, but i don't think anyone was arguing this point, though the contrapositive of: PhD --> novel contribution to human knowledge is certainly not: !(PhD) --> !(novel contribution to human knowledge)
    • dlsspy 16y ago
      That's just how I read this: You push at the boundary for a few years Until one day, the boundary gives way And, that dent you've made is called a Ph.D. It seems to me that calling the expansion of human knowledge a Ph.D. implies that those who don't have Ph.D.s have not dented the circle.
  • eavc 16y ago
    I didn't feel like you were being arrogant at all, believe it or not. I just thought it was a neat claim and was interested in learning more. What's amazing to me about the PhD (and no, I don't think only the PhD) is that usually, when you're done with your research, you've actually learned something that no one anywhere has ever known before. I imagine many of us have things like that, most of it being incredibly trivial stuff (like the cat's paw example above). It's incredibly cool to think about learning something utterly novel in an area like biology or math or physics. Thanks for the response. I honestly meant no ill will, only curious.