My friend who's a PhD student didn't know how many oz were in a cup...

not sure if suprised wrote:

You're a good example of another PhD moron ... can't distinguish between expert knowledge and things taught to elementary school children.... I think people who pursue PhDs do so because knowing a lot about some tiny obscure thing no one cares about is the only way they can feel or look smart.

OK, you win. No one with a Phd can possibly match your knowledge of ounces, the meaning of traffic signals and other important things. I'm gonna go check the mirror to make sure that my glasses and elbow patches match my pipe.

sc42 wrote:

not sure if suprised wrote:

You're a good example of another PhD moron ... can't distinguish between expert knowledge and things taught to elementary school children.... I think people who pursue PhDs do so because knowing a lot about some tiny obscure thing no one cares about is the only way they can feel or look smart.

OK, you win. No one with a Phd can possibly match your knowledge of ounces, the meaning of traffic signals and other important things. I'm gonna go check the mirror to make sure that my glasses and elbow patches match my pipe.

My point was simply that if you don't know basic common knowledge stuff, you are stupid, and that I am surprised to find such people who are supposedly highly intelligent and educated.

[/quote]

If he's doing anything right, he'll know a ton of statistics and data analytic skills, realize that academia isn't for him, and get a very good paying job as a data scientist. Analyzing ecological data isn't that much different than analyzing customer data.

The "specialized" trope is thrown around by management types who have no skills other than coming up with buzz words and kissing ass. It's like saying anyone who works for a company is so specialized in whatever widget or service that company provides they couldn't possibly go to another company that makes a different widget or provides a different service. PhDs in hard sciences (and many social sciences) have the most prized skill these days: how to analyze quantitative data. If you ain't doing that, you're obsolete because we're automating you away.[/quote]

__________________________________

Statistics is the new religion, people!

a canadian science major wrote:

I have no idea what most of these non-metric conversions are. We never learned anything other than metric in school, thankfully.

My mother, on the other hand, comes from a generation where all of the conversions were branded into their skulls during grade school and she knows most of them by heart but is pretty much useless at simple math. In my opinion, imperial units are for fools. A monkey could memorize them, but why would anyone (outside of backwards countries like the U.S.) want to? Metric is the way to go! On the rare occasion that I need to know a conversion, I'll Google it.

It's common knowledge that these simple conversions which we are exposed to everyday in the US are simply beyond the ability of the average Canadian intellect, and no one is putting pressure on you to try and match us...

8 ounces = 1 cup

2 cups = 1 pint

2 pints = 1 quart

4 quarts = 1 gallon

You'd have to study for years to master liquid measurements.

not sure if suprised wrote:

My point was simply that if you don't know basic common knowledge stuff, you are stupid, and that I am surprised to find such people who are supposedly highly intelligent and educated.

Yes, thanks. I understood it after you repeated it the first three times, but I had to concentrate really hard because all this real world message board stuff is super hard for me.

Yeah, 8, 2, 2, 4. Only Uh-mericans could come up with such a logical system. What not 2, 2, 2, 2? Or, 4, 4, 4, 4? The best is would be using multipliers of 10. Maybe a Uh-merican can invent that system of measurement.

sc42 wrote:

not sure if suprised wrote:

My point was simply that if you don't know basic common knowledge stuff, you are stupid, and that I am surprised to find such people who are supposedly highly intelligent and educated.

Yes, thanks. I understood it after you repeated it the first three times, but I had to concentrate really hard because all this real world message board stuff is super hard for me.

Your previous post suggests you didn't understand my point. If you had, you wouldn't have written what you did. Maybe you just don't understand the difference between asserting someone is stupid and asserting that I am smart. These two things are independent of one another. Someone can be stupid regardless of where my intelligence lies, and just because someone else is stupid does not mean I am intelligent.

It's also possible that instead of just thinking rationally and reading what was written for what it literally said you let your emotions cloud your reasoning and fired back with something irrational thinking it would make me look bad. In reality all it did was make you appear to be lacking in comprehension skills. I can see why such a person would get so upset over such trivial things. I probably would too if I never understood what people were actually saying and thought converting cups to pints was specialized knowledge.

In Canada we learned the metric system, which most of the world recognizes for its pure logistics. In America, for some reason, you subscribe to an inferior system of measurement that has no logical basis nor any reputable status internationally.

Why would anyone need to know your idiotic system? We have it simplified in a logical format. It has caught on in many countries.

Have fun with internal inferiority battles based on liquid measures in your educational system while the rest of the world might discuss more important matters when it pertains to handing out a doctoral diploma. OP, you seem a little insecure and looking for an anonymous handout online. Why not just pursue your own goals in life without trying to undermine the goals of someone else?

Sincerely,

Guy With A PhD In Physics

Guy With A PhD wrote:

In Canada we learned the metric system, which most of the world recognizes for its pure logistics. In America, for some reason, you subscribe to an inferior system of measurement that has no logical basis nor any reputable status internationally.

Why would anyone need to know your idiotic system? We have it simplified in a logical format. It has caught on in many countries.

Have fun with internal inferiority battles based on liquid measures in your educational system while the rest of the world might discuss more important matters when it pertains to handing out a doctoral diploma. OP, you seem a little insecure and looking for an anonymous handout online. Why not just pursue your own goals in life without trying to undermine the goals of someone else?

Sincerely,

Guy With A PhD In Physics

A PhD in physics and you can't even read. Amazing.

Not dat important wrote:

not sure if surprised wrote:

I'm not sure if this is super significant, but he's a PhD student in ecology and didn't know how many ounces were in a cup, nor how many cups were in a pint. He's a born and raised American. Is this odd? I learned this in 3rd grade I believe, but maybe his university isn't very good?

PhD in ecology--not impressed.

Regardless, it isn't that important.

Yes, i'm sure his friend's goal of obtaining a PhD in ecology was to impress you and your snobby cohorts.

Get a grip, man! Not everybody is out to feel important. Some people just enjoy studying certain topics.

an phd in america is barely the equivalent of a hs diploma in the civilized world

Yes, I can read. Your endless banter on this topic, however, leads me to believe that you cannot rationalize. What are you hoping to gain in pointing out an irrelevant fact about your friend in his field of study who has obtained more credentials (educationally) than you? I have a PhD in Physics. Big deal. That just means that I know Physics well. I'm not sure why an Ecologist would need to know fluid conversions on such a small scale. If you are trolling, then I will admit defeat; however, if you are displaying what Psychologists would note as an inferiority complex, then I suggest you discuss the issues you have about your friend with a professional rather than on an anonymous internet message board.

Also, Americans (... cough... cough, more countries than just America...) are conventionally taught the metric system in higher education. Would you expect an American graduate student to really make a contribution in a subject if they did not know the metric system? Competition becomes international in graduate studies and requires an understanding of the most commonly used measurement system in the world. Does this have anything to do with Ecology? Probably, as spatial units would seem to play a role in this field of study (e.g., habitat fragmentation).

Without looking it up, can you tell me how many grams there are in an ounce?

28.35 is close enough for consumer/retail work but it's actually 28.3495231.

But I'm not a good example can do pi to 11 places 3.14159265359.

Guy With A PhD wrote:

which most of the world recognizes for its pure logistics.

Dr. Genuis,

I think the word you were looking for is "logic", not logistics.

To the OP ... I know ~20+ PhDs ... most don't know who played in the Super Bowl last year, the capitals of all 50 states, the name of the local MLB team, etc. I could go on and on. The things that you are referring to are simply trivia, gathered through rote memorization of facts.

Imi Lichtenfeld wrote:

28.35 is close enough for consumer/retail work but it's actually 28.3495231.

But I'm not a good example can do pi to 11 places 3.14159265359.

Very good. But I can do pi to 3.1415926535897932384626433

I have a bood with pi to one million places.

Here's a question for ya, why does pi have infinite digits?

That's nothing. There's an entire political party specifically devoted to denying the existence of climate change. How embarrassing is that?

1000 mL = 100 cL = 10 dL = 1 L

1000 g = 10 hg = 1 kg

1000 mm = 100 cm = 10 dm = 1 m = 0.001 km

Love it.