P.H. Duh!

I wish I had a dime for every time someone says, "Todd has a Ph.D., but he can't (. . . you fill in the blank)!"  This kind of comment adequately serves as an equalizer.  In fact, the degree that I've just hung on my wall should include (in a fancy Gothic font, of course) a disclaimer of some sort.  Perhaps under, "has completed his prescribed course of study," should be enscribed, "but he still can't drive a stick!" or "still counts his fingers when doing math."  These humbling comments are always made in jest, and I can take them.  But this kind of comment reminds me of an underlying assumption many people have of graduate-students and graduate-graduates.  This is a belief that those with advanced degrees must be taken down a notch and not think too highly of themselves.  Of course this is true of many academic types who are the real "smarty pants."

I know of what I speak when I say Don't assume that anyone with a Ph.D. is automatically smarter than you are.  Instead, just assume they have undergone a long haul of hard, tedious work that has developed an ability to do research and articulate it sensibly to a committee in oral and written form.  I know practically nothing about the medical academy, but I suppose the same applies to M.D.s; their greatest worth probably lies not as much in what they "know" or have retained as much as that they understand how to find important answers.  And my own dissertation title will encourage anyone who needs important answers about "The Scientific Viability of W.A. Dembski's Design Inference: Response to B. Forrest and R. Pennock of the Kitzmiller Trial."  Perhaps, at best, you're thinking that this knowledge will help you if you're a contestant on Jeopardy.  Then again, I don't think the title will fit on any of those blue category squares.

If you'll pardon the crass analogy, the most accurate way I can describe doctoral research is that it's like looking up the anus of a gnat.  It must involve becoming an "expert" in a very specific area that no one else has thought of closely examining, or maybe no one else would care to, yet a committee agrees that it's about time someone did.  So therefore, I do (or did!)

I'll hold off on explaining the relevance of my topic for now.  (I heard that sigh of relief!  Knock it off!  Like I said . . . for now.)  Generally, this topic falls into the area, among others, that's called Christian apologetics.  And I believe that is a very important subject for everyone to learn about and contemplate.  So, at present, I think that's what this blog will be for . . . or, huh . . . for what this blog will be.  (Sorry, a smarty pants with a Ph.D. can't go around dangling his prepositions.)