SC - OT: Re - [fwd] [Mid} sca becomes a general term

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 2/22/99 10:42:20 AM Eastern Standard Time, acrouss at gte.net
> writes:
> 
> << its a bit hard
>  to teach yourself cell culture and cellular immunology techniques >>
> 
> Agreed. But it can be done and there is no forum in MODERN society which
> exists for a person who does do it to be recognized. That is my' beef'. :-)
> 
> Ras

One of the problems is that it's hard to determine who should be
recognized when they have no formal training or professional status in
the field in question. In the case of formal training, the recognition
is pretty self-explanatory, and for those who achieve professional
status without the formal training (generally astronomically harder that
way) there are things like honorary degrees.

Yes, an honorary degree and a buck and a half gets you a ride on the
subway, as they say in these parts, but the honorary degree (usually a
doctorate) in conjunction with having earned real prominence in your
field is something else again.

The first person I can think of, offhand, who got such an honorary
doctorate (a doctorate of letters from Oxford) is my favorite author,
P.G. Wodehouse, whose education ended more or less at what Americans
would call high school (i.e. college but not University), but still
enabled him to cultivate an ingrained brilliance which enabled him to
have a poem read to him in English, and write simultaneous translations
in Latin with his left hand, and Greek with his right. And the
translated passages were in lyrical poetry. The only other person I ever
heard of who could do that was Thomas Jefferson.

There's no real denying Jefferson's brilliance (especially to Ras ;  )  
), but one might argue Wodehouse, who never wrote anything serious, let
alone profound, in his life, was an odd choice for an honorary doctorate
from Oxford. On the other hand, he was the most popular and highly-paid
author in the world when Mencken, Auden, Orwell, Maugham, and Hemingway
were in their heyday. In fact, for most of the first 3/4 of the 20th century.

I guess my point is it's hard to prove that one's self-taught grasp of
cell culture and cellular immunology techniques are adequate, unless one
is a Wodehouse or a Jefferson. A scientist I know (and one of the
leaders in his particular field) always told me the best reason he could
think of for having a degree was so that you would never have to explain
to anybody why you didn't have one. This sounds pretty silly until you
think about it a bit.
    
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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