Everybody,
Sorry, by CUSF I meant www.cusf.org
Nick
From: Nicholas Thompson [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 12:34 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] PhD vs Expertise
With his unerring ability to skewer the question, Steve Smith wrote:
“In Nick's case, I think that he has reasons for wanting PhD folks that transcend the question of whether a non-PhD could do the same job equally well or better. It slims his options down mightily. The folks I know of who might lead such a seminar are "amatuers" in the very best sense.... limited formal education with a lifetime of dedication and self-study on the topic out of "love" for the topic, not people who had the resources our patience to make it through a formal program.”
Well, at this point I am willing to take advice, because I haven’t gotten very far with the City University of Santa Fe idea on my own and I obviously need help. But here is the dilemma I experience. Whenever I give the elevator talk on CUSF I get three responses, immediately: (1)” Get back to me when you have 200 million dollars.” (2) ”Are you accredited? “ (3) “I’m smart, I don’t have a PhD. Why should anybody want a [bleeping] Phd?
Let me try and answer each in turn.
(1) CUSF is just me, a state charter, a small and mostly reluctant board of directors and 30 some members whom I don’t dare to contact for fear they will ask to be removed from the list. There is a provision in the bylaws (on the website) that we cannot handle money. This is because I don’t like to handle money and because, I don’t think one should have money before one has people. If the academic and quasi academic population of santa fe doesn’t WANT a damned university, then I shouldn’t be looking for money for it.
(2) No, I am not accredited. But other institutions in Santa FE ARE accredited. And if they would pull together a little, the CUSF could be spawned out of them. The problem is of course to convince these institutions to become part of a City University, which is looking, in addition to everything that is already going on in Santa Fe, to develop graduate programs in all the things that Santa Fe does best …. Art, Anthropology, Music Performance, Computer science, Archeology, Government, high desert ecology, Complexity studies, etc., etc The advantages to all the educational institutions in Santa Fe would be to raise the profile of Santa Fe as a place to come for higher education … not just a place where you can learn x, y, or z, but an educated place, full of smart people who know a lot of stuff, from which you can learn a lot of stuff.
(3) This is the hardest. I am a sucker for amateurism, as you all know. I am, in fact, probably one of the last people lucky enough to sell himself to academia as a professional amateur. One of the amazing things about Santa Fe is the sheer quantity of organizations here delivering high quality amateur education. But I also am a sucker for professionalism. I think they make a nice mix, a good dialectic. One of the things I have learned, moreover about the people who say, “I’m smart, I don’t have a PhD. Why should anybody want a [bleeping] Phd?” is that, if you offered them a good PhD program, they would grab at it. A period of obsessive specialization is a good thing for any amateur to have experienced, quite apart from any job benefits it may later bring. Look, I am an amateur meteorologist. Have been for 62 years, far longer than I have been a professional psychologist. I have observations that I made on the Worcester Tornado of 1950 and the Massachusetts hurricanes of 1954, Edna and Carol, I think. I have even written a meteorology book But I just don’t know the physics. If I went down to UNM and took a Phd in Meteorology, I would probably know the physics when I got back, if I ever got back. And, I would know about some aspect of meteorology in obsessive detail. I think I would be a better meteorologist for that, don’t you? And, by the way, would you rather go to a board certified neurosurgeon, than the nice guy down the street who has been reading up on neurosurgery and been practicing on rats in his basement since he was a kid? (Actually, I would probably consult both.)
But, as I say, it really is time for me to take advice.
Nick
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 9:45 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] PhD vs Expertise
Peggy -
I agree with the sentiment that having a PhD doesn't guarantee Expertise, having only a (pair of) BS degree myself and having learned a great deal (most?) of what I use to do my work in the school of hard knocks preceding and following (and paralleling) my formal education. But I don't know of any PhD programs that don't require original and elaborate research.
Despite my own distrust of the PhD mills of the country, I have found, as a mentor to many PhD candidates and PostDocs in my career (at least in Math/Science/CS) that while memorization skills might be handy to get you through many of your undergrad courses and even some grad courses, they won't do your research and they won't write your dissertation, nor defend it in front of your committee.
Again, I agree with the sentiment that one can be quite an expert sans formal advanced degrees. I myself depend more on being a generalist with only "modest" expertise in any given field. For many topics, I love having access to seasoned as well as recently-minted PhDs in various technical fields, they often spent several years of their lives studying the one thing in depth that I need to know a lot about and either know most of the dead ends or have one slam-dunk of a solution to my particular problem of the moment.
The seasoned ones are usually my peers or superiors, though there are plenty who took their little scroll of paper, nailed it on the wall (in a very nice frame usually) and never did another lick of original work. The fresh ones are often sharpened to a fine point, but have no breadth, but that is where real work and mentors like myself come in. We introduce them to a wide range of problems where their acute knowledge on one topic, basic background preparing them for their PhD program, and their general skills in research can be applied over and over again, leading them to becoming well rounded, seasoned experts.
Bozos like myself who chose not to get drug through another several years of formal education may or may not go on to become competitive with the PhDs. I'm often mistaken for having a PhD, probably not for any specific deep expertise, but for my breadth of interests and skills and my confidence. I sometimes take offense because too many of the PhDs in my (former) circles were lazy blowhards, but the mistaken identity is (almost?) always an indication of respect, not derision.
In the liberal arts, PhDs may very well mean something else, but I hope not. Since most PhDs in Liberal Arts have few other options than Academia, that may skew things a bit. I'm not sure how Industry uses LIberal Arts PhDs... gone are the good old days of AI when a PhD in Philosophy would land you a job in AI Research.
Few of my best mentors have had PhDs. So when looking for a course or seminar or workshop, I don't look at the letters following the teacher/leader/professor's name. If I look at anything, I look for references from others who have studied under her... I look for real-world experience.... I look for an enthusiasm for the subject.
In Nick's case, I think that he has reasons for wanting PhD folks that transcend the question of whether a non-PhD could do the same job equally well or better. It slims his options down mightily. The folks I know of who might lead such a seminar are "amatuers" in the very best sense.... limited formal education with a lifetime of dedication and self-study on the topic out of "love" for the topic, not people who had the resources our patience to make it through a formal program.
Carry on,
- Steve
To Nick Thompson re "expertise"
The ability to memorize and quote things is not, in and of itself, expertise. It is simple a great ability to memorize.
--
Peggy Miller, owner/OEO
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