On Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:02:13 -0700, Hawke
wrote:

On 10/26/2011 2:40 AM, John B. wrote:

This is certainly not a condemnation of a collage education, rather it
is a condemnation of the thought process that insists that a collage
education somehow always produces an intelligent individual.

College produces people who have passed a course set up to train them to
learn certain things. It doesn't guarantee these people are particularly
bright, just that they passed the assigned course. But then, after four
or five years of taking college courses that alone would impart a level
of knowledge far greater than someone working in a grocery store would
have. At least it should.

What is worse is that Education is one of the easiest courses to pass.

All of us who have gone to college and gotten a degree know very well
that everyone who has a degree isn't a genius. We all know people we
went to school with who are idiots. So college graduates know well a
degree doesn't guarantee anything.

In my experience that is, perhaps not total, but certainly a
significant amount of B.S. From my own prospective I have actually
hear an individual state that "I went to collage and you have only a 4
year education". Later events demonstrated that the implied advantage
was not quite correct as the 4 year guy went on to be a
multi-millionaire while the guy with the collage education now is
supported by his wife.

While I'm sure that happens on occasion I'm think what happens the
majority of the time is that the college educated person gets a higher
paying job and earns more over the course of his life than the guy
without one. So if you play the odds you get a degree, if you're capable
of it. That doesn't mean you get ahead it just means your chances are a
lot better.

True.

Or, have you ever been around any consulting projects, say USAID,
W.B., UN? Every one of them demand a collage degree but rarely do they
demand experience in the actual project requirements. I've seen a
bloke with a Doctorate in "Library Sciences" work for years on
various projects such as transmigration, cross cultural training and
work of that type without a clue about the work. We had a project that
initialed certifying how much jungle was cleared in support of a
transmigration project. Towe blokes with Master's degrees were made
Project manager and assistant. When it came time to certify the first
month's clearance they didn't know how, didn't have a clue. And these
people's resumes were submitted and accepted as part of our original
tender.

Sounds to me like you had the wrong people doing the wrong jobs. Maybe
it was cronyism that was the problem. I know I wouldn't expect computer
science graduates to do very well being assigned the job of building a
bridge. But I bet they would be smarter and more knowledgeable people
than the construction workers were.

Not at all. We were bidding for project with the idea of getting them
and initially had done a lot of research with local USAID, W.D. U.N.,
etc., regarding exactly what they wanted to see on a tender. I, at
least, was absolutely appalled to discover that the most important
thing was a Master's Degree. A Doctorate was, of course better, and a
Batcheler's was barely acceptable, but the level of the degree was
what was important. In fact, with a couple of exceptions most of the
people, based on experience or training were essentially unqualified.

Example:

The division Manager had a Master's in Manicipal Planning.
Unfortunately we never bid that kind of work.

Another bloke who worked for us for nearly 20 years had a Doctorate in
Library Science (and whom we were bright enough to never attempt to
utilize in more then a window dressing capacity).

Two guys with Masters proposed, and accepted, for a project to certify
the amount of land cleared and prepared for agriculture in support of
a Trans Migration program. Neither had training in any form of science
and literally did not know how one would go about measure a plot of
land

And on and on.

I will give them credit, they were fast on their feet and knew when to
talk and when to keep quiet in order to not be seen as an idiot, but
as far as actually knowing the job they were hired for I can only
comment that if they were applying for a job in my division they
wouldn't get hired.



We also hear the uneducated chiming in on how stupid people they know
with degrees are. But then the uneducated are always telling us how
getting a college degree is not very important. We hear words from them
like, we never got no degree and we done just fine, from them all the time.

Not from me. I haven't said a word about the worth of a degree. After
all I got one myself. But I sometimes shudder to remember how much I
thought I knew as apposed to how little I actually knew when I
graduated.

I think what is more important is how much more did you know coming out
of college than you did when you went in.

True, in a sense, as long as you don't fall into the trap of thinking
that because you went to collage you're somehow anointed with all the
knowledge there is.

In fact I notice that the really slick engineers all are pretty close
with the people who actually does the work and heed what the blue
collar blokes say.

I've mentioned the engineer that wanted to drill a 3 inch deep #80
hole and called out the !- .0001 tolerance. After a while he learned
:-)



But that's not really the point. I'm talking about who one chooses to
listen to or take advice from. My view is that when you want to know the
truth about something or the facts you go to someone who is an expert, a
professional, someone who has a credential, someone who actually knows
what they are talking about. You don't go to a layman, the common man,
or the man in the street. That's my view.


You are not saying what you originally said. If I remember correctly
you referenced a collage graduate as an expert and this was what I was
protesting about.

I don't think I ever said that having a college degree conveyed the
level of expert on someone. What I meant to say was that compared to
someone with no college; someone with a degree would be seen as an
expert. Take someone with a degree in psychology. Compare what he knows
to someone with no college. When it comes to psychology if you compared
the two I'd say in that comparison the guy with the degree in psych
would be an expert. He wouldn't be considered an expert compared to
someone with a Ph.D. in psychology and 20 years of practice. But to a
layman he would be.

You keep using the word "collage" and you are wrong. For example - You
want to learn to make really good wine? Yes, you can approach a
collage that has courses in viniculture (several in California) or you
can talk to the little old Itallian guy who's family has been the wine
making business for 10 generations..



I agree with you with the exception that the degree does not always,
in fact I suspect rather infrequently, means that one is an expert. To
use your own analogy who would you prefer tell you what club you
should use for this shot? The 8th grade caddy or the non-golfer with
the degree in aerodynamics?

In fact I suspect that knowledge depends more on an individual's
desire to learn rather than a diploma. Henry Ford was apprentice
machinist, not a degreed engineer; Walter Chrisler was a machinist,
Neither of the two originators of APPLE had degrees; Bill Gates was a
collage drop-out; Samuel Colt was indentured to a farm.

You're bringing up specifics here and some of them from long ago. Back
in Ford's day almost no one had college degrees. Sam Colt didn't live in
the modern era. Bill Gates got rich by selling someone else's operating
system to business and Steve Jobs was in the ground floor of the
computer's invention. I don't think you can learn much from the
experience of people whose life experiences are like no one else's.

Sure, I took advantage of your terminology "collage" :-)

But, Bill didn't get rich merely marketing someone else's operating
system. The first MS DOS had significant changes from the QDOS system
that MS bought from Seattle Computer Products since QDOS was a nearly
exact copy of the CP/M System which had been developed by Digital
Research..

Jobes wasn't really in on the ground floor of the computer's
invention. He was a buddy of Steve Wozniak, the guy that invented a
micro computer that could be attached to a TV, and got the idea to
market them after the first 300 they made sold like hotcake's to the
S.F. Bay computer Club.. Jobes was really a master marketer.

Your argument that Colt, Ford, etc., didn't have collage degrees as
they were from a different era is a bit overboard as the first collage
degrees in the U.S. were awarded in 1642. Colt was born in 1814, some
170 years later, it was quite possible for him to have had a degree
had it been though important.

But in any event it is somewhat of a fictitious argument as all those
mentioned did not have a collage degree (although they were available)
and became successful in spite of it.


Relating that to Limbaugh is simple. He is the ordinary man, the
uneducated, the layman. I'm not being negative. I'm simply describing
him accurately. There is simply no area in which Limbaugh has any
specific expertise beyond what any ordinary person has.


I didn't even know who Limbaugh is but looked him up on the Wiki and
apparently he is some sort of talk show MC. Which hardly qualifies him
for anything.

I know. That's my point. Even though he has no qualifications he has
millions of people who follow his every word. I think that's nuts. Now
if he was an expert in anything that would be different. But he's not.



According to my view of going to professionals, experts, or the
educated, that lets out Limbaugh. But that's my way of doing things.
Clearly, lots of people don't do it my way. Instead they take the word
of someone who has no particular training or expertise on just about any
subject. I'm saying I think that is a stupid way of doing things and
that the people who do that are themselves stupid. That's how it looks
to me.

Hawke

I can only agree that people seem to have a penchant for listening to
those who say what they want to hear. Obama's school history is a
perfect example - the "Moslem School" that he attended. The name of
the school, which has been published, translates to "National School
Number 4". In fact the school's name, Sekolah Dasar Negeri 04, is
indicative of a non-religious school as a Moslem religious school
would be refereed to as a "Madressa", not a "Sekolah".

But people hear what they want to hear.

I'd change that slightly to a lot of people hear what they want to hear.
Because there are plenty of people in the world who are capable of
objectivity. Just because most are not doesn't mean that applies to
everyone. The problem arises when the people who hear what they want to
hear meet the people who hear what really is there. There's going to be
conflict because those who hear what they want to aren't going to like
being told they are not hearing what really is.


Hawke

All right, "Most" :-)

But add to that fact becomes somewhat less then correct as time goes
by. I had a long discussion, with Gunner, about the Revolutionary War
and nearly all of the "fact" taught about the war are wrong. Including
the Boston Tea Party - which says something for the people who espouse
their antics :-)



--
John B.