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[Doktor Howl]

Having a hoot on FB Athiest 411.

I have managed to poke a hipster into arguing that a child should always be respectful, even while being abducted.

What the shit?

There's this viral video that has a street preacher with an annoying PA system, blasting it at people in a park.  This little girl walks over and tells the guy to shut up, in about 30 different ways ("PIE HOLE SHOULD BE CLOSED" ).  I have no idea if it was staged.

Anyway, a few of the more ukelele-minded members decided that this was terribly disrespectful, and said that anyone who disagreed was an awful parent.

I asked if kids should ALWAYS be respectful.  They said yes.  I asked if that included a kid being abducted, should the kid respectfully submit or respectfully ask to be released.

One person, a woman, said "Yes".

and 

You should show them this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/10/23/watch_little_girls_swear_for_feminism_fckh8_ad_girls_dress_in_princess_costumes.html

And watch their veins pop.

I've seen that.  It's AWESOME.

[Suu]

I just woke up from a really fucking disturbing dream.

I don't remember the whole context, but my grandmother's body was lying in a boat by the water, and my sister and I had to climb down there to put lipstick on her. (Context: My aunt put lipstick on her at the funeral home because they forgot it.)

So we get down there. Some kind of party is going on. I think we're with one of my cousins, but I don't know for sure.  For whatever reason, her lips were painted white, or, they forgot the funerary makeup and it was her natural skin. Whatever. So we lean over to do what we need to, and her eyes open a bit to reveal the typical demonic  black shiny eye, and she snorts a bit, and goes back to dead. Just like that. My sister jumps back and screams, and I pretty much do the same.

In the background, I hear my mom go, "Don't worry, dead bodies do that all the time."



That was it. I was out of bed and in the bathroom staring at the mirror like WTF.

[Doktor Howl]

I just got Kai'd last night.

Young guy I know on FB, working on his doctorate, up and announces that you can't call yourself a scientist without a PhD.  I thought he was joking at first, but he went on a tear about how all non-PhDs are essentially bottle washers that have to have things explained in minute detail.

It's worth mentioning that he has no work history in his field.

[LMNO]

"Scientist, eh? May I see your papers, please?"
     /

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I just got Kai'd last night.

Young guy I know on FB, working on his doctorate, up and announces that you can't call yourself a scientist without a PhD.  I thought he was joking at first, but he went on a tear about how all non-PhDs are essentially bottle washers that have to have things explained in minute detail.

It's worth mentioning that he has no work history in his field.

I wonder what all of those giants whose shoulders we stand on got their PhDs in.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

You should ask him what his thoughts on Bill Nye are, since he only has a bachelors in mechanical engineering. Maybe he should call himself Bill Nye the Regular Guy.

[Suu]

Hah. My professor just the other day said that a historian is someone who likes history enough to keep reading and writing about it. No degree required, it just looks better.

My dad is a chemist and a metallurgist specialist. He has an associates from the 70s, but his experience speaks for itself. There's no reason why I would never refer to him as a scientist. He does science for a living. I mean for fuck's sake, NASA trusts him.

[Eater of Clowns]

I'm a scientist marrying a man.

[Suu]

I'm a scientist marrying a man.
[/quote

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I just got Kai'd last night.

Young guy I know on FB, working on his doctorate, up and announces that you can't call yourself a scientist without a PhD.  I thought he was joking at first, but he went on a tear about how all non-PhDs are essentially bottle washers that have to have things explained in minute detail.

It's worth mentioning that he has no work history in his field.

That's funny, because I had a conversation with my study buddy about this yesterday. It was along the lines of "are science educators also scientists?" because two of the best professors we've ever had were dedicated educators; one of them has a PhD and the other a Masters, but both of them teach because teaching is what they love to do, rather than, as most science professors do, teach because they're required to teach by the university as a stipulation of being able to do research there. Bill Nye, Richard Dawkins, and Neil deGrasse Tyson all came up. I was taking the perspective that if a person applies the scientific method while practicing inquiry, they are doing science - they are a scientist. He was taking the perspective that if you have a PhD in science, you're a scientist. Ultimately we both abandoned our perspectives because, as he said, dividing ourselves into categories based on semi-arbitrary boundaries with conditions that are inconsistent from individual to individual is unproductive.

As for being a glorified bottle-washer... perhaps that's how he felt about his own undergraduate experience. At my university, there is a strong emphasis on undergraduate research and undergrads are encouraged to undertake their own research projects, and to publish and present.

[Eater of Clowns]

It's also possible that he was a glorified bottle washer because his professors didn't see him as competent enough to trust him with more significant tasks.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

It's also possible that he was a glorified bottle washer because his professors didn't see him as competent enough to trust him with more significant tasks.

Possible, especially if his perception is that they have to be walked through everything.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also, I have to inquire a little further... how is it that he is working on a PhD and has no work experience? In the fields I'm familiar with, PhD training, after a year of classes, almost entirely consists of working in the field. Which means washing bottles in the lab and doing whatever else the senior grad student tells you to do. Is he in his first year? I'm almost willing to bet he's only just started, which means he is riding high on a wave of superiority that will come crashing down in his second year.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's also possible that he was a glorified bottle washer because his professors didn't see him as competent enough to trust him with more significant tasks.

Possible, especially if his perception is that they have to be walked through everything.

But if that's the case, I wonder how he even managed to get into a PhD program.

[Doktor Howl]

You should ask him what his thoughts on Bill Nye are, since he only has a bachelors in mechanical engineering. Maybe he should call himself Bill Nye the Regular Guy.

He was specifically talking about Bill Nye.