Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

joseduarte.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 380 posts

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

#351

Post by drumdance »

linkregister wrote: post #321
drumdance wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One trip to Houston or Minneapolis Uh, okay. How about rural Georgia where I grew up? Dollars to donuts that Houston and Minneapolis have much higher subscription rates to the New Yorker than zip codes from elsewhere in the state.

Are you implying that Houston and Minneapolis aren't in the midwest? Are subscriptions to the New York Times the benchmark of intellectualism?

C'mon, you seriously think the population of rural Texas is about the same as Houston? Where I grew up in Georgia is a heck of lot different than Atlanta.

http://www.politico.com/2014-election/results/map/senate/geo...

And people wonder why Trump does so well in the polls.

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

#352

Post by druddha »

statictype wrote: post #186
druddha wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a belief. I said "...may limit your capacity to effectively perform your job." Providing a list of Christian scientists does not disprove my statement. Obviously being religious doesn't necessarily mean you will perform at a lower level relative to your peers. But to borrow from Sam Harris, if you met a scientist who openly admitted to believing Elvis is still alive, would you hold the same opinion of them p…

if you met a scientist who openly admitted to believing Elvis is still alive, would you hold the same opinion of them professionally? Basing your professional opinion of someone on anything other than their professional work strikes me as very 'unsciency'

Of course. But with all else being equal, would a manager be more likely to promote a scientist who believes in a higher power or a religiously agnostic scientist? The former implies anti-scientific thought.

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

#353

Post by robotresearcher »

rantanplan wrote: post #349
robotresearcher wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You asserted:

> When [scientists] perform comprehensive experiments then, depending on the results, [they] finally know what the truth is.

and contrasted that with the beliefs of religious people. Your assertion isn't quite true, and I explained why.

Then you told me off for (a) not reading your fine comment; (b) irrelevance; and (c) having poor apparel recommendations.

I concede the last point gracefully. Have a great weekend.

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

#354

Post by rantanplan »

robotresearcher wrote: post #353
rantanplan wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You asserted: > When [scientists] perform comprehensive experiments then, depending on the results, [they] finally know what the truth is. and contrasted that with the beliefs of religious people. Your assertion isn't quite true, and I explained why. Then you told me off for (a) not reading your fine comment; (b) irrelevance; and (c) having poor apparel recommendations. I concede the last point gracefully. Have a gre…

a) That was an honest mistake. I really didn't get your point in your first comment.

b) Compared to the greater point, which was the dishonesty of equating "believe-in" to "believe-that", it was a bit irrelevant. Yet, as I said, interesting. Also I explained why this kind of nitpicking doesn't offer much(IMHO), by giving the example of how far we can go by playing with truthiness/falsiness values.

c) Hey, there's no accounting for taste! Also, I didn't judge. I just said that I don't wear them.

Have an even greater weekend

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

#355

Post by alphapapa »

druddha wrote: post #201
dragonwriter wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A law that cannot be enforced isn't really a law. Making a case for religious discrimination is difficult. To the extent that it is difficult to enforce, it is because it is difficult to know when it has occurred. But, that doesn't reduce the surprise one should have when one discovers that it has occurred, because that means that it is one of the cases where the problems that usually exist with discovering that it…

Surprise is subjective and I think my analogy is apt. > Religious beliefs in general are not incompatible with skepticism on questions within the domain of science; I disagree. The Bible explicitly attempts to provide explanations for the order of the natural world. > some specific religious beliefs may be incompatible with skepticism in some areas of scientific inquiry, but, again, that's different than the generali…

The Bible doesn't "do" anything. The Bible is a collection of ancient writings by various authors over a period of time spanning over a thousand years.

One of the most significant obstacles to interpreting the Bible today is the unreasonable burdens placed upon the text. For example, the writers of the creation story in Genesis had no concept of modern science, and their purpose in writing was not to explain how the cosmos were created, but to explain that the cosmos were created by YHWH. When we read it expecting to find scientific explanations for the nature of the universe, we obscure the authors' purpose and the intended meaning. People who do so then discount the entire text based upon their own unreasonable expectations, and then accuse those who find value and existential truths in the texts of being irrational (or worse).

Considering how poorly we humans tend to communicate verbally and face-to-face, I guess it's no big surprise that we tend to do a poor job of interpreting the written word as well.

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

#356

Post by shanemhansen »

druddha wrote: post #154
engi_nerd wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly? I've worked with so many absolutely brilliant people who had beliefs in other areas of life that I found baffling and confusing that I would just shrug and file that away as an eccentricity.

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.

Newton would like to have a word with you about turning stuff into gold via the power of alchemy.

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

#357

Post by stefantalpalaru »

druddha wrote: post #352
statictype wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you met a scientist who openly admitted to believing Elvis is still alive, would you hold the same opinion of them professionally? Basing your professional opinion of someone on anything other than their professional work strikes me as very 'unsciency'

Of course. But with all else being equal, would a manager be more likely to promote a scientist who believes in a higher power or a religiously agnostic scientist? The former implies anti-scientific thought.

> anti-scientific thought

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime

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

#358

Post by fabulist »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #357
druddha wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. But with all else being equal, would a manager be more likely to promote a scientist who believes in a higher power or a religiously agnostic scientist? The former implies anti-scientific thought.

> anti-scientific thought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

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

#359

Post by someguydave »

linkregister wrote: post #320
someguydave wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived around Davidsonville, MD for awhile, I'm pretty certain that the 'pragmatic' folk you referenced feel absolutely trampled by the establishment in the nearby megalopolis. I know a farmer there, he barely scratches out a living - much of the local farmland was bought up by rich lawyers to build large homes. My point being that I think you actually unwittingly identified this 'midwest/coastal divide' in you…

Likewise having lived in the area, I have not identified this feeling of being "trampled". I have identified a local pride and a comfort with a less urban way of life. But I feel I could not possibly give an example that could satisfy you, since practically every habitable region in the world has experienced a "rich lawyer" or two buy up land in the area. Yet the fact remains that the majority of the region maintains…

The maintenance of its rural character is purely by fiat - every square inch of Anne Arundel county is zoned for the benefit of the politically connected in Annapolis. Absent the imposed zoning law, the whole area would have been converted to high density suburbia decades ago. Further, farmland would be immediately sold if it weren't sheltered from property taxes through state subsidy law. So anyone trying to scratch a living from that farmland lives in an economic reality that is largely dictated by others.

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

#360

Post by linkregister »

drumdance wrote: post #351
linkregister wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that Houston and Minneapolis aren't in the midwest? Are subscriptions to the New York Times the benchmark of intellectualism?

C'mon, you seriously think the population of rural Texas is about the same as Houston? Where I grew up in Georgia is a heck of lot different than Atlanta. http://www.politico.com/2014-election/results/map/senate/geo... And people wonder why Trump does so well in the polls.

You are arguing a viewpoint that is not in contention here. The post I was responding to was talking about "Middle America" versus "coastal intellectuals." In other words, you are attempting to refute a position I haven't advocated.
Post reply on HN