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I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

joseduarte.com

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Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#341

Post by fromMars »

dang wrote: post #244
fromMars wrote: post #51

I grew up in a red state, too, and as an atheist, I got tired of being told I was going to hell by peers and forced to pray at school events. As such, I have a lot of Christian friends but, it is understandable that some "intellectuals" are hostile to those with strong religious beliefs given that many with similar beliefs deny scientific concepts like evolution, advocate teaching creationism in schools, and deny the…

Religious flamewars, which is where this thread is headed (indeed crosses into, below) are off topic on Hacker News. So we detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10747716 and marked it off-topic.

I think the parent poster's original comment should also probably be marked as off topic, too, given that he inserted religion into the discussion.

I personally agree with Jose Duarte, that his political beliefs should not be grounds for denying admission.

My point was meant to counter the notion that a certain segment of the country has a monopoly on making judgements about those in the out-group.

I experienced the same things FuzzyZeus complains about it growing up in one of the red states.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#342

Post by druddha »

Verdex wrote: post #197
druddha wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being brilliant doesn't necessarily make you a good scientist. Skepticism is a core quality of being a scientist. Believing in something without proof is contrary to being skeptical. Thus, believing in god or Elvis are anti-scientific beliefs.

I'm not trying to be facetious, but: Skepticism is a core quality of being a scientist. Is something I'm skeptical about (if we all end up learning something here, I'll definitely appreciate the irony ... also I'm happier with your "a core" than I would be if you had said "the core"). Anyway, I just got done reading [1] and found it interesting that Galileo's biggest advantages as a scientist were that he could grind…

I apologize for not being more clear. I'm speaking specifically of scientific skepticism [1]. Without practicing scientific skepticism, Galileo would not have been motivated to grind lenses in the first place.

I also failed to differentiate "belief" from its use in common vernacular, so I'll rephrase my previous statement:

A scientist practices scientific skepticism. Accepting an unsubstantiated hypothesis without empirical evidence is contrary to scientific skepticism. Belief in a higher power is accepting an unsubstantiated hypothesis without empirical evidence. Thus, belief in a higher power is contrary to scientific skepticism. Therefore, belief in a higher power is contrary to being a scientist.

Of course it's human nature to become emotionally attached to a hypothesis of one's own design. And perhaps scientists would not so rigorously pursue empirical evidence to support their claims if they didn't "believe" them. But the difference between a scientist and a theist is that a scientist will back off their hypothesis when evidence to the contrary is presented, whereas a theist will not.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_skepticism

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#343

Post by midwest1 »

jolux wrote: post #314
midwest1 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the number is somewhat less than 99 percent. If you are referring to the Cook study, the study borders on fraudulent, to be kind. Hard to type using my phone, I have a couple of posts from 70 days or so ago explaining my problem with that study. No one really knows how big that consensus is, or what the consensus even is. Too much noise in the way.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/97-percent-consensus-robust....

Rather than take someone's word for it, its quite easy for anyone to verify for themselves that the Cook study is flawed.

Read the abstract, and understand the premise... As was explained in the above postlink. Then visit web of science and verify that claims are true, which you can do yourself.

If you do this, you'll note that the skepticalscience website is misrepresenting the Cook study, whether on purpose or by accident.

Just because someone says that a thing is solid does not make it so.

I am always willing to change my mind, but not on anyone's say-so. Particularly given giant red flags such as the Cook study.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#344

Post by Retra »

pcl wrote: post #229
Retra wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Politics are people's private business What twisted hoops did you have to jump through to say something like that? "Private politics" is not politics. It makes no sense to say something like that. Politics is explicitly about interacting with other people in a non-private way.

I imagine that what the author intended to say was something along the lines of "An individual's political views are the private business of that individual." I think that's pretty clear from the context.

I know what the author intended; my point still stands. The term for "non-personal belief" in English is "political belief." Anyone who says otherwise is usually either lying in an attempt to put their beliefs beyond criticism (which may be warranted,) or simply repeating what their culture has taught them to say. (This is only 2015, after all, and we are the cavemen of the future. We have many self-contradictory and damaging cultural norms.)

Politics is explicitly about controlling other people, and there's nothing personal about that.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#345

Post by druddha »

xupybd wrote: post #168
druddha wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing how to change a flat is not "highly useful" knowledge if you have a AAA membership. The reason changing a flat is considered "beneath" knowledge like understanding Socrates ideas is because it takes time and effort to comprehend complex, abstract topics. Whereas changing a tire is an easy skill to learn for any person. In fact, a scholarly person refusing to learn how to change a flat tire is of benefit to so…

Yeah, the problem is changing a tire will take you about 15 minutes to learn. Less time than it would take waiting for the AAA. Sure if you don't want to do it, there's nothing wrong with that. But many smart people don't learn simple practical things for the same reason many practical people don't learn intellectual things, they put them in the too hard or too boring basket. You tend to be good at the things you wor…

It's an obviously an analogy.

In modern society, is knowing how to change a tire more practical than understanding the basis of argument?

> You tend to be good at the things you work at, and work at the things you like.

You work at those things which bring you utility. It's a subtle difference, but utility includes activities you don't like but which generate income. Ideally, those activities are also beneficial for society. Critical thinking is more highly valued in modern society than is knowing how to change a flat.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#346

Post by isolate »

Retra wrote: post #307
isolate wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably you can imagine a somewhat stupid robot that does random scientific experiments, generating good beliefs and bad ones. Why would that invalidate the good beliefs? Belief A has no rational basis. Belief B has a rational basis. If you believe A yet have proven B, that doesn't make B wrong. Even if believe that it was A which led you to the discovery.

It doesn't. But it is a good clue that the robot isn't using a rational process to select beliefs, and is instead doing so randomly. It is far easier to come up with an invalid belief than a valid one, and if you aren't selecting them rationally, you are practically guaranteed to be wrong. >If you believe A yet have proven B, that doesn't make B wrong. It makes you wrong. All the time you spend as a proponent for A i…

Brute force approaches can work. For example, evolution produced humans.

I agree that it's better not to waste your time believing A if you can avoid it.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#347

Post by droidist2 »

rdancer wrote: post #333
droidist2 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the only thing missing from the US to make it European style left wing is socialized health care And most European countries don't even have socialized health care, just basically the UK.

France does[1], Germany does[2], and so does the whole rest of the EU. So does Russia[3]. Is there any country in Europe that doesn't? [1] http://france.angloinfo.com/healthcare/health-system/health-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany#Public_i... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Russia

I think you may be confusing universal healthcare with socialized medicine, it's a common mistake.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#348

Post by engi_nerd »

Retra wrote: post #344
pcl wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that what the author intended to say was something along the lines of "An individual's political views are the private business of that individual." I think that's pretty clear from the context.

I know what the author intended; my point still stands. The term for "non-personal belief" in English is "political belief." Anyone who says otherwise is usually either lying in an attempt to put their beliefs beyond criticism (which may be warranted,) or simply repeating what their culture has taught them to say. (This is only 2015, after all, and we are the cavemen of the future. We have many self-contradictory and…

Or maybe English isn't their first language?

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#349

Post by rantanplan »

robotresearcher wrote: post #325
rantanplan wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously didn't read about the comprehensive experiments I mentioned. Sometimes I wonder why I spend time to respond to people. No one reads anything. People just want to disagree to pass the time.

On the contrary, I mentioned 'substantiated hypothesis'. Comprehensive experiments are how a hypothesis becomes substantiated. There's no other way. And you rudely accuse me of not reading. Even with an enormous and indefinite number of validating experiments, a theory is still provisional. There is no forever truth. For example consider Newtonian physics. For the 200 years until relativity and quantum mechanics were…

Sorry I didn't mean to insult you.

On the other hand what does all this have to do with the belief(as in faith) and the belief of scientists in various phenomena, theories etc?

You picked a word("truth") from my post and wrote an irrelevant(but kinda interesting) comment.

We were talking about the absurdity of believing in something(like god) rather than believing that something might hold true.

And then, you're just playing with words, you're not actually making a point.

If one would want to be concise they would say that everything can be true or false, for specific values of truthiness or falsiness under a particular context.

Case in point: Newtonian physics is true under a macroscopic context.

PS. I don't wear T-shirts that bear aphorisms.

Re: I was denied admission to a PhD program because of my perceived political views

#350

Post by dang »

ap22213 wrote: post #198

Well, at least they weren't being politically correct, right? Personally, I look down on people who are members of any political party. I truly try not to be biased, but it's pretty hard not to generalize. People who seek out association with amorphous groups just seem intellectually weak, lazy, or worse. The irony is that I'll probably be down-voted for stating my opinion (the way things are these days). Edit: Actua…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10747675 and marked it off-topic.
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