erectlocution ⊇ boxing jewels

We Are Only as Strong as the Weakest Among Us

Rather than spin the story unnecessarily, I’m just going to quote a procession of commentary and leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide what, if any, point onto which I’m piggybacking.

KINGSTON, R.I. — There is nothing much unusual about the 197-page dissertation Marcus R. Ross submitted in December to complete his doctoral degree in geosciences here at the University of Rhode Island.

His subject was the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago. The work is “impeccable,” said David E. Fastovsky, a paleontologist and professor of geosciences at the university who was Dr. Ross’s dissertation adviser. “He was working within a strictly scientific framework, a conventional scientific framework.”

But Dr. Ross is hardly a conventional paleontologist. He is a “young earth creationist” — he believes that the Bible is a literally true account of the creation of the universe, and that the earth is at most 10,000 years old.

NY Times: 2/12/07

This has predictably led to a bunch of people calling for him to be denied the degree, and denouncing the practice of creationists using academic credentials to lend themselves an air of authority. It’s an interesting problem, though– if he’s done the work needed to get a Ph.D., and written it in a manner entirely consistent with accepted scientific beliefs, are there really any grounds for denying him the degree?

I would say no– we’re not the Bar Association, and there’s no character requirement for getting a doctorate. He’s done the work, and he can talk the talk, so give him the degree. To the extent that there’s a problem at all, it’s a scoietal problem– too many people take the Ph.D. as a sign of real authority, when in fact, doctors of philosophy are as likely to be nutty as anybody else.

Uncertain Principles

Alas, most of the commentary strikes me as missing a key point: that to give a degree to a bozo like this, provided he indeed did the work, can only reflect credit on the scientific enterprise. Will Ross now hit the creationist lecture circuit, trumpeting his infidel credentials to the skies? You better believe it. Will he use the legitimacy conferred by his degree to fight against everything the degree stands for? It can’t be doubted.

But here’s the wonderful thing about science: unlike the other side, we don’t need loyalty oaths in order to function. We don’t need to peer into people’s souls to see if they truly believe (A or not(A)), or just assume it for practical purposes. We have enough trouble getting people to understand our ideas — if they also assent to them, that’s just an added bonus.

…

To explain why “belief” questions often leave me cold, I can’t do better than to quote the great Rabbi [Carl] Sagan.

I’m frequently asked, “Do you believe there’s extraterrestrial intelligence?” I give the standard arguments — there are a lot of places out there, the molecules of life are everywhere, I use the word billions, and so on. Then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren’t extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as yet no compelling evidence for it.

Often, I’m asked next, “What do you really think?”

I say, “I just told you what I really think.”

“Yes, but what’s your gut feeling?”

But I try not to think with my gut. If I’m serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.

Scott Aaronson

There’s quite a bit of good stuff I’m glossing over, and I’m not aggregating much more than Mr. Orzel (Uncertain Principles) did. However, I’m more than happy to lazily propagate this into my small bubble of the aether and hope for some barely nontrivial, positive result.

In Aether, Aldous, Technology on 15 February 2007 with no comments

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