Can/should we Skeptics in Modern Science?

Rolfe said:
Oops, said that before, didn't I? But Kumar doesn't want to get an education.
Based on my experience with Kumar I believe this to be the most likely explanation for his unability to learn, because no one is this dense.
 
Rolfe,

Then, better you can learn & teach in Dr.Mas style. Frankly, it looks now, you don't know anything, how similar salts are analysed on ash analysis & just carrying on this issue since long by mentioning this & that type talks. If you can't tell on 'parts basis', you could have told on 'total body basis'---how similar salts are found on hauman ash analysis?

Anyway, you may deny & leave , if modern science didn't made it clear to you. Other things have no relavance to it, as you are trying to divert.
 
Originally posted by Kumar Frankly, it looks now, you don't know anything, how similar salts are analysed on ash analysis & just carrying on this issue since long by mentioning this & that type talks. If you can't tell on 'parts basis', you could have told on 'total body basis'---how similar salts are found on hauman ash analysis?
Hey, Kumar, would you please make it clearer what you mean by similar salts? What is similar to what? What are you comparing to what? Maybe if you gave some examples it would be clearer what you are asking.
 
Kumar said:
Rolfe,

Then, better you can learn & teach in Dr.Mas style. Frankly, it looks now, you don't know anything, how similar salts are analysed on ash analysis & just carrying on this issue since long by mentioning this & that type talks. If you can't tell on 'parts basis', you could have told on 'total body basis'---how similar salts are found on hauman ash analysis?

Anyway, you may deny & leave , if modern science didn't made it clear to you. Other things have no relavance to it, as you are trying to divert.
Modern science makes it extremely clear to anyone but those who refuse to understand. Namely, you. If a remedy can't show, in a placebo controlled trial, that it is more effective than placebo, then it is not effective at all.
 
flume said:
Hey, Kumar, would you please make it clearer what you mean by similar salts? What is similar to what? What are you comparing to what? Maybe if you gave some examples it would be clearer what you are asking.

As per the details, which you have given previously. Do we get salts on ash analysis of plants & animals or not? If yes, will these be mostly comparable or not taken from many specimens?
 
Ooh! Just noticed I made a great pun without realising it.

(Simple things....)

Rolfe said:
I know what sulphur and phosphorus are, and I know what ions are, and I know why sulphur and phospohorus are not ions.

What I want to know is whether you understand anything at all about these elementary matters.
 
Rolfe,

Then, better you can learn & teach in Dr.Mas style.
The day I either learn or teach in any way similar to Dr. Mas, is the day I shoot myself.

OK, Kumar, I don't know anything. They just gave me a PhD for spending three years studying the concentrations of a wide range of electrolytes in different body fluids because they felt sorry for me, I suppose.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
The day I either learn or teach in any way similar to Dr. Mas, is the day I shoot myself.

OK, Kumar, I don't know anything. They just gave me a PhD for spending three years studying the concentrations of a wide range of electrolytes in different body fluids because they felt sorry for me, I suppose.

Rolfe.

It means you don't want to learn anything on other sujects. Thanks for clarification.

He also claim about many PhDs. Why don't you respect & give credit to him? The real use of your studies & knowledge to me is ;what you can give to me, not what is with you? I am just insisting salt's type role, because I observeed salts type effect not ion/atom type effect? TRS have Natrum Mur. & Natrum sulph., both from Sodium group but somewhat opposite effect.??
 
Kumar said:
Why don't you respect & give credit to him?
Because of the content of his posts, or rather the content that is lacking from them. He makes wild claims and then makes excuses for refusing to attempt to substantiate them. I have no way of knowing how much his qualifications are actually worth, since his website doesn't reveal where he got them, but I have certainly been able to form an opinion of him from what he has posted.
 
Kumar said:


He also claim about many PhDs.

I'm not sure how much credence to give to these claims, especially given the evident age of his avatar.


Why don't you respect & give credit to him?

Because, as far as I can tell, he has little or no knowledge or information of the sort that earns respect, credit, and credence.

Either he's wildly unqualified to hold his Ph.D.s (which is a definite possibility), the Ph.D.'s are in areas completely unrelated to the biological and medical sciences (which I rather doubt), he's mentally unhinged (also a definite possiblility), or the Ph.D.'s simply do not exist (which I think is the most likely of the three options).

If his opinions were scientifically valid, his degrees wouldn't matter. As his opinions are scientifically invalid, his degrees still don't matter.
 
Kumar said:
Rolfe,

Then, better you can learn & teach in Dr.Mas style. Frankly, it looks now, you don't know anything, how similar salts are analysed on ash analysis & just carrying on this issue since long by mentioning this & that type talks. If you can't tell on 'parts basis', you could have told on 'total body basis'---how similar salts are found on hauman ash analysis?

Anyway, you may deny & leave , if modern science didn't made it clear to you. Other things have no relavance to it, as you are trying to divert.
Arrrrg, Kumar! DO try not to make too big a fool of yourself. ROlfe knows more that you could learn in alifetime, even if you started to listen to people.

Rolfe has already explained all that to you months ago. It is just that you are so incredibly thick that you don't get a word of it.


Rolfe: Back on the Kumar wagon, ehh? Heheheh.

Hans
 
new drkitten said:
Either he's wildly unqualified to hold his Ph.D.s (which is a definite possibility), the Ph.D.'s are in areas completely unrelated to the biological and medical sciences (which I rather doubt), he's mentally unhinged (also a definite possiblility), or the Ph.D.'s simply do not exist (which I think is the most likely of the three options).
Why would anyone want more than one PhD?

That was what I always thought was so silly about Quantum Leap. The authors gave the Scott Bakula character about five PhDs, which meant (since there is a mandatory three-year full-time research requirement to get every one) he had done nothing but go from one PhD project to another since his first graduation. What a sad waste of a life!

A PhD is "a training in research". There is a reason why rank-and-file research staff are called "post-docs" - because that's what you do after you've done your training in your PhD project. To go back and do more than one PhD is to keep going round the same hamster-wheel for eternity. And rather suggests you don't have what it takes to cut it in the higher grades.

I can just about imagine someone who has spent their working life in one field, possibly scientific, changing course in later life and studying something completely different, possibly an arts subject, and maybe even going as far as a PhD there too. But I'd be absolutely stunned if anyone could point me to any serious intellectual who boasts more than one PhD in the same or related subjects.

Fact is, you get "your" PhD and move on. It's not a gold star you can be awarded time and time again for a particularly clever piece of work. Same as nobody repeats primary three after passing the end of term exams, nobody repeats their PhD once they've got it.

Rolfe.

Hans - do you understand the term "displacement activity"?
 
Rolfe said:
*Snip*
Hans - do you understand the term "displacement activity"?
I'm not sure. The connotations I get don't seem to fit anything I'd expect you to engage in ;).

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
I'm not sure. The connotations I get don't seem to fit anything I'd expect you to engage in ;).
I have three pieces of work that are really, really urgent. So I sit down at the computer and what do I do? At least it isn't that bloody Solitaire game.

Rolfe.
 
Kumar said:
...He also claim about many PhDs. Why don't you respect & give credit to him? ...
Because he is most probably a liar or his Ph.D.s are not valid academic qualifications, most probably purchased from a schmatta mill.
 
Rolfe said:
Why would anyone want more than one PhD?

As a goal, I admit it's a little unusual -- but I know a few multiple
Ph.D. people who have found that they simply like study, classes, directed research, and so forth -- and they find themselves getting multiple Ph.D.s on the grounds that "hey, I've taken all the courses anyway out of personal interest, so I might as well pay the fifty quid it takes to register for another piece of paper."

At least some schools also offer the option of getting multiple Ph.D.s at the same time through a sufficiently interdisciplinary study. The MuD/PhuD, for example, is almost commonplace. But I've seen a number of other schools that will offer "joint Ph.D." programs where you receive two Ph.D.'s, for example, in biomedical engineering and in biochemistry (for example, for developing an artificial tissue replacement).

And, of course, most of the really top-flight researchers hold multiple honorary doctorates, which are often LLD but sometimes PhD instead.
 
I worked for a Ph.D./M.D. in a primate lab, as an undergraduate. He was into a hot area (at that time) and he had both degrees at 28.
 
new drkitten said:
As a goal, I admit it's a little unusual -- but I know a few multiple
Ph.D. people who have found that they simply like study, classes, directed research, and so forth -- and they find themselves getting multiple Ph.D.s on the grounds that "hey, I've taken all the courses anyway out of personal interest, so I might as well pay the fifty quid it takes to register for another piece of paper."

At least some schools also offer the option of getting multiple Ph.D.s at the same time through a sufficiently interdisciplinary study. The MuD/PhuD, for example, is almost commonplace. But I've seen a number of other schools that will offer "joint Ph.D." programs where you receive two Ph.D.'s, for example, in biomedical engineering and in biochemistry (for example, for developing an artificial tissue replacement).

And, of course, most of the really top-flight researchers hold multiple honorary doctorates, which are often LLD but sometimes PhD instead.
I've never come across any of that in this country. You don't do any courses or classes to get a PhD, you do three years of original research, under a supervisor, then write and submit and get examined on a thesis. Even the people I know who liked that (well, I did actually), would walk barefoot over hot coals rather than do it again. (It's quite enough work taking on the supervision job for the next cohort, thankyouverymuch.) And even if a project spanned two disciplines, you'd only get the one PhD for the one project.

I remember talking to a school friend who said she was just starting a PhD in mediaeval Portuguese literature. I asked with some interest how the heck you did an original research project in that. She explained that you went out and discovered some mediaeval Portuguese poetry that had never been translated or written about before, and translated it and researched its provenance and wrote about all that. And its literary merit. The trick was of course that her supervisor knew where she should look to be virtually certain of finding such poetry. But even if she had to do archaeology as well to find the things, still, no PhD in archaeology. One three-year research project, one thesis, one PhD. That's the rule.

In fact they wouldn't even waive it for Stephen Hawking. He had just started his project when he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and given two years to live. His father petitioned Cambridge University Court to let him graduate if he managed to do enough work and produce a satisfactory thesis in less than three years. He was turned down.

Classes???? Sheesh....

Also, it's an extremely jealously guarded principle that an honorary degree is never a PhD. So you know that the only way to get one of these is to do the work as above. And the idea of doing it twice... not a hope!

Rolfe.
 
Jeff Corey said:
I worked for a Ph.D./M.D. in a primate lab, as an undergraduate. He was into a hot area (at that time) and he had both degrees at 28.
Oh, that's not at all unusual. It's the special nature of the PhD as it exists in my world that makes it extremely unlikely that anyone would volunteer for a second dose.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
I've never come across any of that in this country. You don't do any courses or classes to get a PhD, you do three years of original research, under a supervisor, then write and submit and get examined on a thesis.

Schools vary. At many schools, it's "relatively" easy to get what we used to call a "staple thesis"; just collect four (or so) semi-related journal articles and bind them as chapters 2-5 of the dissertation. (Chapter 1, of course, is a general introduction to the field, and the conclusion can be anything you want up to and including a recipe for braised duck.) These are more common in the United States than in the UK, in part because you often have much more time, sometimes as much as 10-12 years, to complete the dissertation, and it's much easier to do it part-time. I believe such theses are fairly common in Japanese schools as well.

Similarly, I'm not sure who you think is guarding the "extremely jealously guarded principle that an honorary degree is never a PhD," but a simple search on the phrase "honorary PhD" will find several dozen reasonably reputable universities that are happy to award such.
 

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