3 ms·

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

by 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.

by dlsspy 16y ago

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.