All, I write to correct the misleading comments about Mendel in the post below. The idea of Mendel as an amateur savant without connection to the leading-edge science of this day has been debunked for a decade and should be laid to rest. Please read:
"Gregor Mendel and the Laws of Evolution", History of Science, Volume 37, Part 2, Number 116, June 1999: 217-235. Which can be downloaded at the this url: www.shpltd.co.uk/gliboff-gregor-mendel.pdf He was a student of Franz Unger, a pioneer in biogeography and a member of a rich set of fellow scientists Phil Ganter Biology Department Tennessee State University ________________________________________ From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mark Winterstein [[email protected]] Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 10:29 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] EdD vs PhD By now this thread may be getting a little old and I hope I'm not beating a dead horse. But I just would like to point out that a piece of paper does not equal intelligence. I do agree with earlier folks that pointed out that drive and determination are 90% of a PhD with 10% being intelligence. There are plenty of geniuses out there driving cabs and flipping burgers. Have you ever been to a mensa meeting? I think a degree these days means a much different thing than it did 50 years ago. It used to be a big accomplishment to obtain a bachelors degree much less a PhD (so my father tells me). My father worked for the USGS as a hydrologist for over thirty years and started entry level with a bachelors in civil engineering. He worked through the years and moved up in position until he ceased doing field work and was only running analyses and writing reports. To achieve his grade at the time he retired one would need a PhD to qualify. We're in an age where motivation and a yearning to learn aren't enough. It seems now we need to be qualified by institutions and recieve a piece of paper to prove to the world we are intelligent or perhaps just competent enough to to contribute to a field of science. The funny thing nowadays is when a person follows their personal passion for a subject they haven't been trained in or recieved a degree in and they're called an amateur scientist. By these standards so would've Gregor Mendel. We must be careful to hold on to titles so dearly and remember to check our arrogance at the door. Mark Winterstein
