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It’s a little tacky to use “Dr.” on the basis on an honorary doctorate, and may subject you to ridicule, as happened with “Dr.” Calvin Rolark. Also, Stallman i

It’s a little tacky to use “Dr.” on the basis on an honorary doctorate, and may subject you to ridicule, as happened with “Dr.” Calvin Rolark. Also, Stallman is misguided in asking the universities if he had permission. It is not a matter of permission, and, even if it were, it would not be the universities’ to give. I admire Stallman’s accomplishments. But I always get an impression of feigned naïvité when reading these comments of his on his website. Can anyone in his position truly be so innocent?

vbezhenar 6y ago
> It is not a matter of permission, and, even if it were, it would not be the universities’ to give. Whose permission would it be to give?
- leephillips 6y ago
  It, like most titles and honorifics, are a matter of societal convention. If some university gave him an honorary doctorate and told him he now had “permission” to use the title “Dr.”, that would barely attenuate the eye-rolling that would ensue.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Indeed. Even Florida Atlantic University is correct and (apparently helpfully) clear on the point.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
koolba 6y ago
Not as tacky as referring to yourself as “doctor” in the context of a medical discussion when your field has nothing to do with medicine whatsoever.
- leephillips 6y ago
  Are you referring to anything in particular?
- laingc 6y ago
  It is important to note that in many places outside the US, Physicians are only honorary Doctors. For example in New Zealand, Physicians graduate MB ChB - Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of surgery. Lawyers likewise graduate LLB - Bachelor of Laws. You’re only technically a Doctor if you have a Doctorate - PhD, DPhil, DSc, MD. It doesn’t invalidate your opinion, but it’s worth being aware of your own cultural context when making judgements.
  - leephillips 6y ago
    In New Zealand, when you are sick, do you go to the doctor or to the Bachelor of Medicine?
    - laingc 6y ago
      You go to the GP - General Practitioner.
      - leephillips 6y ago
        So that’s what people use in conversation? They don’t use “doctor” as a synonym for physician?
        aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 6y ago
        Isn’t that what they say in Britain? “GP”?
        laingc 6y ago
        Yes
        6y ago
eluusive 6y ago
Why? He has a doctorate in Open Source Software. What does a PhD represent?
- leephillips 6y ago
  He does? In what department in what university did he earn this earned degree? What was his dissertation about?
  - jack9 6y ago
    "earn" as in was granted by a university? The purpose of a graduate degree (Masters, Doctorate, et al) is to further knowledge. Without churning out "dissertations", Universities would be nothing more than echo chambers for what's already accepted and considered "known". https://vimeo.com/9270320 https://vimeo.com/9270320 - Greg Wilso mentions this, because it's important to all modern human industry and somehow that's rarely understood. In that vein, there are discoveries, studies and experts that occur or develop outside of universities. This is the source of an honorary degree. Famously, others have been given various degrees for effort and demonstrated competence (eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Joel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Joel). People who scoff at honorary doctorates are elitists, at best. Those who do not accept that expertise can be cultivated excepting through anything other than standardized processes understandably believe that no other process is legitimate despite the fact that there are narrow and wide fields of study for which there exists no framework. There is some truth to the observation that age unfairly plays into academic accomplishment insofar as someone younger could not be granted a teaching position or honorary degree, even if they demonstrate comparable knowledge. Part of the leeway is due to a passion or commitment to topics that can only be demonstrated through a life-long pursuit of knowledge and criticality.
    - leephillips 6y ago
      Nobody is being an elitist or scoffing at anyone. The phrase “earned degree” has a particular meaning: it means “not honorary”. I think honorary degrees are great. But they are what they are. The convention is not to use the title “Dr.” on the basis of an honorary degree. That‘s it. Stallman is a legend, and obviously has no need of titles.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
Can anyone in his position truly be so innocent? By all accounts -- even his own -- he's pretty socially clueless. That seems to be a root cause of why he's so controversial. No one seems able to imagine he acquired his stature due to technical expertise alone. Everyone seems to imagine you have to also be smooth, diplomatic, well-mannered, etc to be at the top of anything. Merely being a technical genius and pioneer couldn't possibly be the explanation, no.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  Or maybe not clueless, but persistently and pedantically trying to get to the bottom of every possible issue.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    It's his personal site. It says so in big, bold letters across the top of the site: Richard Stallman's Personal Site. Maybe the tech world could stop being so enamoured of gossip and cult of personality that techies often like to imagine they are immune to. Maybe people could just let him pedantically examine his belly button in public to his heart's content and not bother him about it. I have no idea why people are reacting so negatively to this piece. It's extremely mild and reasonable and compares his firsthand experience with what he's heard about practices on two continents. If you don't care what the hell he thinks about every random social topic, stop reading every random thing he writes about random social stuff. He has gotten plenty of real world push back on genuinely harmful and problematic statements he has made. He's owned up to "Yeah, that wasn't great. I'm not great at social nuance. I learned something there." And people are continuing to have a cow about a post like this?! That's not his fault. That's other people being ridiculous.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 6y ago
> an honorary OK, but he has 15. The cumulative effect of these has to be capable of overcoming a barrier potential.
- krapp 6y ago
  There is no cumulative effect to honorary degrees. Fifteen imaginary things are still 100% imaginary. He didn't earn them, he was gifted them because people liked him. They're puffery, they don't mean anything.
  - Brian_K_White 6y ago
    If one person says "this comment is idiotic and I'm down voting it", it means nothing. If fifteen people also all say the same thing... it means something. All a " real" doctorate is in the first place is a certification of expertise and/or recognition of acheivement, just like a uniform or a badge or a license etc, so that someone who was not there and has no way to know from direct experience, how seriously to take your advice, and on which topics. An honorary degree performs exactly the same function.
    - krapp 6y ago
      >An honorary degree performs exactly the same function. No, it doesn't. Richard Stallman didn't put in the work to earn fifteen doctorates, he hasn't earned the right to be considered on par with someone who put in the work to earn even one. The function of an honorary doctorate is the same as the function of a key to the city, which is to say an ego boost to the receiver and publicity for the giving institution, but make no mistake - a real doctorate and an honorary one are not the same. The former takes years of study, discipline and effort, the latter requires literally nothing but showing up.
      - kazinator 6y ago
        That is factually false. Doctorate degrees aren't earned for doing a certain quantity of work, but for expanding human knowledge. If your work doesn't expand human knowledge, regardless of its quantity or quality, it is not Ph. D. level.
brutus1213 6y ago
You know .. I have a PhD in CS, and even I feel odd about having put Dr. on my driving license. It is kind of messed up that a Chiropractor and a Dentist call themselves Doctors without batting an eye (nothing against those professions), and I have feelings of doubt. I sort of understand what he is saying even though I earned my PhD :-p
- 5555624 6y ago
  > It is kind of messed up that a Chiropractor and a Dentist call themselves Doctors without batting an eye For a Dentist, DDS (Doctor of Dental Surgery) and DMD (Doctor of Medicine in Dentistry), which I understand to be the same degrees, at least implies a medical background.

vbezhenar 6y ago

> It is not a matter of permission, and, even if it were, it would not be the universities’ to give. Whose permission would it be to give?

leephillips 6y ago
It, like most titles and honorifics, are a matter of societal convention. If some university gave him an honorary doctorate and told him he now had “permission” to use the title “Dr.”, that would barely attenuate the eye-rolling that would ensue.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Indeed. Even Florida Atlantic University is correct and (apparently helpfully) clear on the point.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

koolba 6y ago

Not as tacky as referring to yourself as “doctor” in the context of a medical discussion when your field has nothing to do with medicine whatsoever.

leephillips 6y ago
Are you referring to anything in particular?
laingc 6y ago
It is important to note that in many places outside the US, Physicians are only honorary Doctors. For example in New Zealand, Physicians graduate MB ChB - Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of surgery. Lawyers likewise graduate LLB - Bachelor of Laws. You’re only technically a Doctor if you have a Doctorate - PhD, DPhil, DSc, MD. It doesn’t invalidate your opinion, but it’s worth being aware of your own cultural context when making judgements.
- leephillips 6y ago
  In New Zealand, when you are sick, do you go to the doctor or to the Bachelor of Medicine?
  - laingc 6y ago
    You go to the GP - General Practitioner.
    - leephillips 6y ago
      So that’s what people use in conversation? They don’t use “doctor” as a synonym for physician?
      - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 6y ago
        Isn’t that what they say in Britain? “GP”?
        laingc 6y ago
        Yes
      - 6y ago

eluusive 6y ago

Why? He has a doctorate in Open Source Software. What does a PhD represent?

leephillips 6y ago
He does? In what department in what university did he earn this earned degree? What was his dissertation about?
- jack9 6y ago
  "earn" as in was granted by a university? The purpose of a graduate degree (Masters, Doctorate, et al) is to further knowledge. Without churning out "dissertations", Universities would be nothing more than echo chambers for what's already accepted and considered "known". https://vimeo.com/9270320 https://vimeo.com/9270320 - Greg Wilso mentions this, because it's important to all modern human industry and somehow that's rarely understood. In that vein, there are discoveries, studies and experts that occur or develop outside of universities. This is the source of an honorary degree. Famously, others have been given various degrees for effort and demonstrated competence (eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Joel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Joel). People who scoff at honorary doctorates are elitists, at best. Those who do not accept that expertise can be cultivated excepting through anything other than standardized processes understandably believe that no other process is legitimate despite the fact that there are narrow and wide fields of study for which there exists no framework. There is some truth to the observation that age unfairly plays into academic accomplishment insofar as someone younger could not be granted a teaching position or honorary degree, even if they demonstrate comparable knowledge. Part of the leeway is due to a passion or commitment to topics that can only be demonstrated through a life-long pursuit of knowledge and criticality.
  - leephillips 6y ago
    Nobody is being an elitist or scoffing at anyone. The phrase “earned degree” has a particular meaning: it means “not honorary”. I think honorary degrees are great. But they are what they are. The convention is not to use the title “Dr.” on the basis of an honorary degree. That‘s it. Stallman is a legend, and obviously has no need of titles.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

Can anyone in his position truly be so innocent? By all accounts -- even his own -- he's pretty socially clueless. That seems to be a root cause of why he's so controversial. No one seems able to imagine he acquired his stature due to technical expertise alone. Everyone seems to imagine you have to also be smooth, diplomatic, well-mannered, etc to be at the top of anything. Merely being a technical genius and pioneer couldn't possibly be the explanation, no.

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
Or maybe not clueless, but persistently and pedantically trying to get to the bottom of every possible issue.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  It's his personal site. It says so in big, bold letters across the top of the site: Richard Stallman's Personal Site. Maybe the tech world could stop being so enamoured of gossip and cult of personality that techies often like to imagine they are immune to. Maybe people could just let him pedantically examine his belly button in public to his heart's content and not bother him about it. I have no idea why people are reacting so negatively to this piece. It's extremely mild and reasonable and compares his firsthand experience with what he's heard about practices on two continents. If you don't care what the hell he thinks about every random social topic, stop reading every random thing he writes about random social stuff. He has gotten plenty of real world push back on genuinely harmful and problematic statements he has made. He's owned up to "Yeah, that wasn't great. I'm not great at social nuance. I learned something there." And people are continuing to have a cow about a post like this?! That's not his fault. That's other people being ridiculous.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kazinator 6y ago

> an honorary OK, but he has 15. The cumulative effect of these has to be capable of overcoming a barrier potential.

krapp 6y ago
There is no cumulative effect to honorary degrees. Fifteen imaginary things are still 100% imaginary. He didn't earn them, he was gifted them because people liked him. They're puffery, they don't mean anything.
- Brian_K_White 6y ago
  If one person says "this comment is idiotic and I'm down voting it", it means nothing. If fifteen people also all say the same thing... it means something. All a " real" doctorate is in the first place is a certification of expertise and/or recognition of acheivement, just like a uniform or a badge or a license etc, so that someone who was not there and has no way to know from direct experience, how seriously to take your advice, and on which topics. An honorary degree performs exactly the same function.
  - krapp 6y ago
    >An honorary degree performs exactly the same function. No, it doesn't. Richard Stallman didn't put in the work to earn fifteen doctorates, he hasn't earned the right to be considered on par with someone who put in the work to earn even one. The function of an honorary doctorate is the same as the function of a key to the city, which is to say an ego boost to the receiver and publicity for the giving institution, but make no mistake - a real doctorate and an honorary one are not the same. The former takes years of study, discipline and effort, the latter requires literally nothing but showing up.
    - kazinator 6y ago
      That is factually false. Doctorate degrees aren't earned for doing a certain quantity of work, but for expanding human knowledge. If your work doesn't expand human knowledge, regardless of its quantity or quality, it is not Ph. D. level.

brutus1213 6y ago

You know .. I have a PhD in CS, and even I feel odd about having put Dr. on my driving license. It is kind of messed up that a Chiropractor and a Dentist call themselves Doctors without batting an eye (nothing against those professions), and I have feelings of doubt. I sort of understand what he is saying even though I earned my PhD :-p

5555624 6y ago
> It is kind of messed up that a Chiropractor and a Dentist call themselves Doctors without batting an eye For a Dentist, DDS (Doctor of Dental Surgery) and DMD (Doctor of Medicine in Dentistry), which I understand to be the same degrees, at least implies a medical background.