My professor is a kook!

[Elizabeth I]

I took an intro anthropology course as an elective when I was in college. To her credit, the professor was the department head (didn't leave all the classroom contact to the teaching assistants), but she seems to have been one of those anthropologists who forgot they were supposed to be studying a culture and just joined right in. She told us a long story about a cave that was sacred to some Amazonian tribe - the chief principle was that, if an unbeliever entered the cave his hands would fall off at the wrists. According to her, a team scoffing sociologists or anthropologists or some such went into the cave to prove the tribe wrong and THEIR HANDS DROPPED OFF AT THE WRISTS.

She seemed to find nothing peculiar about this story at all, or any reason to doubt it.

 

[Blackwell]

Anyone ever had a professor like that? It's the first time I've ever had a teacher like this, in all four years at college. It may be unkind of me but I sometimes wonder how she became a professor. She belongs on Oprah, not in college.

Reminds me of that joke:

What do you call a student who graduates last in his class from medical school?




"Doctor."

Congrats on the upcoming graduation!

 

[Vortigern99]

In 1991, a few years before teh Interwebz, my college biology teacher told us that -- get this! -- ketchup is made from worm excrement.

Yeah! You read it right. Worm excrement. Apparently this collegiate professor had been told that major ketchup producers such as Hunt's and Heinz fed tomatoes to a certain kind of worm, and that the by-product of this process was... ketchup.

No amount of research, on the Internet or elsewhere, has been able to corroborate this bizarre belief. I wonder who told him this, and why, and why he didn't research it for himself to see if it was true, and why he told an utterly unsupportable BS belief to numerous biology classes, year-in and year-out until he retired a few years ago.

Bizarre and annoying.

 

[Skeptic]

Funny thing is, I was a theatre major and never ran into a kook in my Dept.

You know, those guys you think were acting...

 

[Skeptic]

It is a lit class the standards are a little different.

I had an abnormal psych prof who thought schizophrenia was caused by social conditioning. (1977)

That's not actually too far away from the classical Fruedian analysis of it.

 

[Maia]

It is a lit class the standards are a little different.

I had an abnormal psych prof who thought schizophrenia was caused by social conditioning. (1977)

Well, he was abnormal, wasn't he?

To be fair-- when that class was taught, I'm pretty sure that there wasn't nearly as much known about the causes of schizophrenia as there is now. We can only work with the knowledge we have at the time, and then we learn better. Otherwise, we'd all still be wearing clothes like this...

 

[The Shrike]

Former professor and research colleague, brilliant landscape ecologist: The guy claimed to see auras. "Claimed" might be too strong a word, however. He never mentioned any of this in class or anything like that, but after working with him for years he disclosed this to me. He didn't really explain what he saw or how he "used" this power, other than that it was just part of a spectrum of energy he was somehow able to sense, kind of like the way birds see more of the UV part of the spectrum than we do.

 

[calebprime]

At NEC, we had an adjunct prof who took an entire class off from the study of synthesizers to teach about different opinions about the historical Jesus. He didn't know anything about the historical Jesus.

Oh, wait. That was me.

 

[Roma]

Don't worry, this is completely normal, it's an unwritten requirement for all undergrad students to have at least one crazy professor.
My geography prof wanted all of the humans on earth to die in order to save the planet.
You have 2 choices here:
1.) argue with the prof at every opportunity
2.) relax and enjoy the thought that it is almost over

 

[luchog]

A full Professor, though? That's a bit of a poser! But it seems that there are a lot of people teaching these socio-politically correct courses who have degreees in what would appear at first glance to be unrelated fields. I remember the Women's Studies teacher at McGill had a degree in Fine Arts (I know 'cuz a friend was dating her).

She may not have actually earned a professorship. Some schools refer to all their lecturers as "Professor", and even mandate it as an official title for anyone in a teaching position, regardless of tenure or actual academic standing (ie. a paet-time lecturer with a Bachelor's degree is a "Professor" as long as he's teaching students and not merely an administrator). One of the schools I attended actually had this policy.

 

[luchog]

In 1991, a few years before teh Interwebz, my college biology teacher told us that -- get this! -- ketchup is made from worm excrement.

I had a biology professor who occasionally told odd stories like this to students. In his case, however, he did it on purpose, to see who wasn't paying attention. He was rather fond of Native American and African mythology, particularly the variations of the "trickster" archetype.

His two favorite quotes were "Question Authority" and "School should never interfere with one's education".

 

[Mashuna]

I took an intro anthropology course as an elective when I was in college. To her credit, the professor was the department head (didn't leave all the classroom contact to the teaching assistants), but she seems to have been one of those anthropologists who forgot they were supposed to be studying a culture and just joined right in. She told us a long story about a cave that was sacred to some Amazonian tribe - the chief principle was that, if an unbeliever entered the cave his hands would fall off at the wrists. According to her, a team scoffing sociologists or anthropologists or some such went into the cave to prove the tribe wrong and THEIR HANDS DROPPED OFF AT THE WRISTS.

She seemed to find nothing peculiar about this story at all, or any reason to doubt it.

Well, there was that tribesman standing inside the cave with an axe.

 

[zerospeaks]

My best friend is tacking Macroeconomics currently.
And the very first day of class the prof handed out a pamphlet titled :

Free market! The only economics.
Subtitled:
Government control equals destruction of economics.

I am not kidding. He called me to tell me, and I said "well, look like you not going to learn anything about Macroeconomics. Have fun being taught by glenn beck."

 

[Hans]

I worked with a Saudi 'professor' who didn't believe the Americans had left Arabia after the second Gulf war and they were hiding in the desert. He use to go off on the weekend searching the desert. When I asked him why he could never find them he said it was because the space shuttle was tracking him.

He use to wrap foil around his body because he said the zionist were shooting microwaves at him.

He had an PhD in computers, but I once found him trying to get a 3.5 disk into a CD drive.....

Years later I found he had bought degrees from an Indian University but did have computer experience, with punch card systems from 30 years ago.

 

[Cainkane1]

I'm graduating from college this year, if all goes well, and am now on my last semester before I get a Bachelor's.

As part of a Pluralism and Diversity requirement that's mandatory to graduate, I had to take an African American studies class and took an African American literature class.

I'm not too happy about having to take the class- nothing against African American literature at all, just that the class didn't fit into my schedule, isn't at a good time and I didn't want to take it of my own accord- but I'm pretty unhappy about the professor. She seems like a sweet lady but doesn't seem like the best or most well educated teacher or the smartest person, to be frank, but that's the least of it.

She believes the Reagan adminstration delibrately planted drugs in the black community.

She tells us about "positive thinking" and how "the universe responds to positive and negative thinking". She told us so when someone offhandedly complained he had a hard time on the paper and she recommended he "think positive" so the universe will help. "Negative thoughts" will only make you write a worse paper, she said.

She believes she can feel the pain of her ancestors as they were taken to America on slaves ships. She blames her back pain on it and tells us she believes each of us might feel the experiences of our ancestors.

She says she prays to nature. Calls nature "Her".

When trying to explain the Out of Africa theory, she seemed to think Watson and Crick discovered it and Leakey was involved and seemed to confuse Lucy with Ardi.

She says she thinks Dick Cheney started two wars and shot his friend in the face because of trauma in his childhood. Yes, she actually said that. When? When explaining the theory of cognitive dissonance, which she says is the explanation behind slavery and racism. "Cognitive dissonance" apparently also made Dick Cheney delibrately shoot his friend in the face.

When she talked about the infamous Central Park Jogger case, she said that the "alleged victim" was taken to the hospital where she "Mysteriously FORGOT! The whole thing!" and it was a conspiracy between the victim and the police.

And she says 9/11 may have been a conspiracy designed to provide justification for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And more.


Anyone ever had a professor like that? It's the first time I've ever had a teacher like this, in all four years at college. It may be unkind of me but I sometimes wonder how she became a professor. She belongs on Oprah, not in college.

Don't argue with her. Just take the class and graduate. The worlds full of kooks and this is an excellant opportunity ti learn how to deal with them. Just go with the flow, pass the course and forget her.

 

[Everett Spair]

When I studied computer engineering at a university we had a professor who was really into all kinds of conspiracies. The usual 9/11 stuff and all that. He also knew his computers good enough to be of great help in various projects we did. So despite his beliefs it was good to have him around.

 

[zerospeaks]

this is an excellant opportunity ti learn how to deal with them. Just go with the flow, pass the course and forget her.

Perhaps this is what is wrong with the entire world.
The non-kooks don't stand up to the kooks.

 

[jiggeryqua]

I think the closest I got during a BSc course was an ancient lecturer with a chip on his shoulder about vegetarians - we spent an hour listening to his increasingly bizarre arguments as to why it was a very bad idea, which culminated in a claim that the producers of Marmite are deliberately lieing about it containing B vitamins. He pronounced it 'mah-meet', I recall, though it's mah-might to everyone else.

Personally, I regard vegetarians with some suspicion, and am baffled by vegans - cooking for vegans is like setting out to paint a landscape but denying yourself any green or blue paint. But the hour was supposed to be a lecture on rural planning, and it became a conspiracy theory about the manufacturers of a savoury spread derived from brewing waste.

For the record, I did stand up to the kook - for some time we were exchanging increasingly convoluted documents which were a kind of hard-copy version of a volatile forum thread. Interestingly, his saner colleagues closed ranks around him - yes, he was mad and next to worthless in his role, but they didn't want to see the old buffer lose his job. The non-kooks defended the kook....he was their kook, after all.

 

[Brattus]

You'd think people that intelligent would be able to easily transcend that type of thinking. That they wouldn't fall into the traps regular humans fall into.

We are all "regular" human beings.

Sorry to bust your bubble but you put "educated intelligent" in one hand and a quarter in the other and you still don't have enough to make a simple phone call.

 

[zerospeaks]

You'd think people that intelligent would be able to easily transcend that type of thinking. That they wouldn't fall into the traps regular humans fall into.

The amazing Randi himself has already addressed this people!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qLwTPq-5uI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbwWL5ezA4g

We can all be deceived.
ESPECIALLY Ph.D's they think because of their learnings they are above being fooled. Which makes them more easily fooled sometimes.