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PHD accreditations

qwrty

New Blood
Q
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
22
I got inspired by another thread in this forum

There are more than a million PHDs in America. But how many are from diploma mills? You know that when they interview 'experts' on talk shows, there are always PHDs around. Dr. So and So claims to have researched topic X and his words are taken for authority. But he may have ZERO knowledge in the topic he claims authority on!

How many claims are accepted daily by the public just because some 'PHD' said it was so?
 
Acceptance of someone's claims based on their own authority is a problem even if their Ph. D. didn't come from a diploma mill (like Mr. John Gray, say), as having a Ph. D. doesn't mean an individual is going to know things about a field they aren't studying, or because having a Ph. D. and being intelligent doesn't make you immune to believing really wacky stuff. Read Kary Mullis' <i>Dancing Naked through the Mind Field</i>. The guy invented PCR, won a Nobel Prize and does have some interesting things to say about why he got into science, but is also a believer in astrology, is an HIV-denialist and is a few more sorts of crazy.
 
qwrty said:
How many claims are accepted daily by the public just because some 'PHD' said it was so?
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I don't know about daily, but Kent Hovind's diploma mill school is well-known. This guy is even listed in the phone book as "Dr." when his accredited education ends when he dropped out of a junior college after his first year. He feels justified by using the title from Patriot University. You can read about the quality of work at that "university" here: http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/bartelt_dissertation_on_hovind_thesis.htm

Gillian McKeith is another well known one. A fair amount of famous alumni from Columbia Pacific University. A Homeland Security official had one from Hamilton University.

http://www.diplomamillnews.blogspot.com/ has a whole list of them.

Other people improperly use the title of Dr. when they received an honorary degree. Famously, Jerry Falwell loves being called a "Dr. Falwell." The man has never been a student in any graduate course, but received three honorary degrees (two from unaccredited schools). Falwell perpetuates this by giving people like Ken Ham, an honorary doctorate from Falwell's Liberty University. Ham rarely forgets using the title in his articles. So it appears to readers that "Dr. Ham" appears to have academic crediblity with his creation musuem.

Ham's own website refers to him improperly as Dr. ( http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2004/0510kh_doc.asp ) Also note how that article calls Falwell, "Dr Jerry Falwell."
 
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I've found that most people around here with real PhDs don't go around calling themselves "doctor". It's usually just "Paul" or "Chuck". Only the students use the "Dr." when talking to one of the faculty. If you get some official correspondence from them, it's usually more like "Assistant Professor, Physics Department" or something.

What also bugs me in woo crap is when someone calls themself a "quantum physicist". Guess what? Quantum mechanics is used in almost every field of physics, so you either get "condensed matter physicist" or "high energy theorist", or whatever.

Don't get me started on the phrase "proven by science"!

So, if someone tells you, "Hi, I'm Dr. Fakey, a quantum physicist, and my gadget is proven by science to work!", they are most certainly liars.
 
TV's Frank said:
I've found that most people around here with real PhDs don't go around calling themselves "doctor". It's usually just "Paul" or "Chuck".
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Exactly. Moreover, I have never known anyone with a PhD to have a reason (ego?) to put the title in the phone book. Here's "Dr." Kent Hovind's listing in the phone book:

http://www.whitepages.com/9900/log_...p=pensacola&state_id=FL&default_listing=phone

Hovind, Kent Dr & Jo

Pensacola, FL 32514
(850) ***-3466
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(I blocked out the phone number for courtesy.)

To quote a passage from Hovind's "dissertation" concerning Charles Darwin:

He was born in 1809 and died about 1880. He was very anti-Christian and tried to influence anyone he could not to believe in God. He was very full of godless ideas. He was a very avid agnostic, racist, and an evolutionist. He believed in a great infinite age of the universe. He was very influential in furthering the ideas of evolution, particularly in the country of England.
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http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/bartelt_dissertation_on_hovind_thesis.htm
 
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On the other hand, knew a person in a school system whose card read:

Dr. XYZ, PhD - The person was (quietly) known to most as "Doctor Doctor".
 
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I have an uncle who was a professor at CSULA. It took him ages to earn his EdD from USC, and ultimately, he wound up a Rhodes Fellow, (mainly, he claims, because he could lecture in Spanish.) It becomes rather infuriating to see clowns like Kent Hovind with their bogus claims of advanced education, especially when you read through what they write, and you realize they couldn't even pass a sophomore English class in High School. My uncle worked his @$$ off to earn his degree, and he deserves respect for his achievement. It's being diluted by slugs like Hovind and others.

I wouldn't be quite so angry about it, except my sister is going around claiming she's got a degree from UC Berkeley in Economics. In reality, she's taken two classes in English there. And she flunked them both.
 
(I blocked out the phone number for courtesy.)
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The link you provided. That's got the number in it unedited.

I don't think I've ever known any Ph. D.'s I know to have the ego to mention their title to the phone company. Then again, they are really hard to get and I'm not too put off by people that do like to be acknowledge for it and actually earned it.

I had a professor back in undergrad who insisted on being referred to as "Dr. So-and-so", but only when he didn't like the person he was talking to.
 
TV's Frank said:
I've found that most people around here with real PhDs don't go around calling themselves "doctor". It's usually just "Paul" or "Chuck". Only the students use the "Dr." when talking to one of the faculty. If you get some official correspondence from them, it's usually more like "Assistant Professor, Physics Department" or something.
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Shoot, few people I know even use the "PhD" after their name in anything they do. The only time I've really seen it is for a lot of the professional faculty, like the MD, PhD or the DVM, PhD. In that case, it makes sense because "Dr" is a little vague, and doesn't really convey all the information about the person.

BTW, IF someone has a legitimate PhD from a US institution, then you should be able to find their thesis title in Dissertation Abstracts (sorry, the link is on my office computer). If their thesis isn't listed there, then I don't consider it legit.

Mine is there. Bill Cosby's is there, as is Laura Schlessinger's Physiology thesis, and Martin Luther King's thesis is there, too. Kent Hovind's isn't.
 
TV's Frank said:
I've found that most people around here with real PhDs don't go around calling themselves "doctor". It's usually just "Paul" or "Chuck". Only the students use the "Dr." when talking to one of the faculty. If you get some official correspondence from them, it's usually more like "Assistant Professor, Physics Department" or something.
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There are two semi-legitimate reasons for this.

The first is that "professor" technically outranks "doctor" as a title (in English), in the same way that "duke" outranks "baron," and so forth. I don't use "dr" my formal correspondence for the same reason that I don't mention my Master's degree; the "professor" title trumps both. And as a practicing academic, the doctorate is more or less implicit anyway.

In an environment where the doctorate wasn't implicit -- for example, working in some industrial position where I was the only Ph.D. in the group -- I would be more likely to use the Ph.D. title. There's nothing wrong with the local vicar insisting upon being called "Dr So-and-so" to distinguish himself from the batallions of other vicars without doctoral degrees; it's much rarer for a bishop to so insist, because almost all bishops get D. Div's somewhere along the way.

This doesn't excuse Hovind's diploma mill degree, nor does it excuse people confusing "doctor" for "God" -- I have a doctorate, but I certainly can't perform surgery; I might not even be able to set a bone properly.
 
fuelair said:
On the other hand, knew a person in a school system whose card read:

Dr. XYZ, PhD - The person was (quietly) known to most as "Doctor Doctor".
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My wife(an obstetrician) has had her prescription pads stolen out of her office on a few occasions over the last few years. She gets calls from pharmacists about a "suspicious" prescription... as if the oxycontin/50 refills isn't suspicious enough, the forged signature... Dr. Hername Psiload M.D.... will also throw up some red flags. :rolleyes:
 
Another creationist quack is Carl Baugh. He claims THREE PhDs. One is an "honorary" degree from an unaccredited place, one from an unaccredited "school" he operates, and one from the not accredited Louisiana Baptist University.

Baugh is a very notorious creationist, and his "credentials" are *gasp* at the very least not respected. See: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/degrees.html

He claims to have found dinosaur and human footprints together! It was later found out the creationists tampered with the rock to make it appear that human footprints were there. See: http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/carl_baugh_page.htm He runs a museum of artifacts like http://www.kent-hovind.com/articles/foolish_fossils.htm

Strangely, Baugh's a bit touchy about his claimed PhD. He posted his dissertation, awarded by a school he now runs, at http://www.drcarlbaugh.org/

I have seen Baugh on cable TV recently with a whole hour on Trinity Broadcasting Network, the name of the show was simply "Dr Carl Baugh".
 
One is an "honorary" degree from an unaccredited place
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Why on earth would one do that? It's like an exercise in worthlessness.

"How worthless can we possibly make this degree?"

"Well, the typical examples of a worthless degree are those given honoris causa by actual universities to people who didn't earn them and who then occasionally go off actually calling themselves "Doctor" and those given by people that have no business handing out degrees. If we could think of some way to combine... THAT'S IT! We'll create the most pointless degree ever conceived."

I almost can't believe the degree from the unaccredited school he runs bit. That seems like just the easiest way out of it ever. At least with the honorary from the unaccredited university, you have to convince someone else to give it to you. Operating the school from which you're getting a degree is pretty much equivalent to me sitting here, declaring myself a Super-Doctor (SPh.D.) and being done with it.
Tried checking for my own thesis here, but it only gives 2006-2007 theses.
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I'll have to check it tomorrow when I'm at work, but I believe you can search for earlier theses if you log in through a university system that subscribes to it.
 
Madalch said:
Tried checking for my own thesis here, but it only gives 2006-2007 theses.
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This is the link I use from my office

http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/gateway

and I have access to all theses here.

98 theses with the name "Baugh" in the author. None of them Carl, unfortunately. Man, you'd think that at least 1 of his 3 PhDs could be legit.

I'll have to check it tomorrow when I'm at work, but I believe you can search for earlier theses if you log in through a university system that subscribes to it.
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That might account for why I can get it in my office.
 
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On a semi-related note, Institute for Creation Research posted a list of "Creationist Colleges" ranked 1 - 6 according to the level of creation they teach. Many of them are not accredited, but ICR isn't interested in that aspect.

The list is: http://icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=115

Baugh and Kent Hovind's alma mater aren't listed, but Hovind's son, Eric Hovind's attended "college," Jackson Hole Bible College, is listed.

Jackson Hole Bible College is hardly impressive. It's a one year unaccredited "college" with creationist professors that don't even live in the same state as the "school." Among those listed on the faculty webpage is "Dr" Ken Ham, see my above post on that.

You can read more: http://www.jhbc.edu/

Just see how Eric Hovind proudly mentions "completing" a college without mention the school is much different than your average college:

Creationist Links Origins to Faith, Everyday Life
Says outlook on Genesis account affects every aspect of life

By Bob Ellis
Dakota Voice
5/7/2006

Eric Hovind of Creation Science Evangelism in Pensacola, Florida is in Union Center, South Dakota this weekend explaining why the Genesis account of creation is not only important to Christians, but affects every area of our lives.
...
Eric Hovind is 27 years old and has been doing creation presentations for about eight years. He said he got into this work full time after completing college, and began by presenting at a home for troubled youths. He said that while it would be nice to give a joint presentation with his father Kent, their busy presentation schedule usually has them going in different directions.
...
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http://www.dakotavoice.com/200605/20060507_1.html
 
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