On Dec 28, 2006, at 11:12 PM, David Savage wrote: > Touchy, touchy. I wasn't attacking your intelligence. Simply saying > that an education doesn't make you a smart person.
I never said that it did. Being educated has nothing to do with being smart. It has everything to do with being trained in how to look for and find information. I did insinuate that someone who seems to hold proudly that he does not have a high school education does not have the credentials to be believable as an environmental scientist. This is not a comment about how smart he might be, it's a condemnation of his opinions as being credible in this field of knowledge. > I work in a field where I come into contact with a lot of "educated" > people. While most of them are smart, there a also quite a few who > aren't, no matter what the piece of paper hanging on the wall > proclaims. Never said otherwise. Attacking education by assuming that it is equivalent to intelligence is a gross error. > I also have a lot to do with people who'd be considered "uneducated", > boilermakers, machinists, plant operators etc. they are some of the > smartest, most practical people I know. Of course some are as thick as > 2 bricks. I was taught many things by these same people. Mechanics, photography, woodworking, shooting, etc. In fact, I visited three of these old mentors on my trip around the country recently, as we have remained fast friends through the past 35 years of my life and I value their thoughts very highly, wanted to see them as they are no longer in the best of health (they're in their 80s-90s now). > You sir seem to have no problem lording his education over others. > > By saying what you've said below, you've confirmed my point about > intellectual superiority. To this thick headed half wit, that makes > you a snob. > > David (I don't have a university education, I must be stupid) Savage I don't "lord" anything. I will, however, point out that opinion is not information whenever I see nonsense being paraded as such. Any person, no matter how well read, "smart", self-educated or whatever, or what a delightful person they might be, is not credible to speak of their opinion as factually based when they can't even take the 20 seconds necessary to confirm a basic fact of geography, to point out just one example of why I felt it necessary to make the comment. I didn't know for sure how thick the ice on Antarctica was or assume that my dim recollection was correct, so I looked it up. It doesn't require an education to do that, but it's what someone who is educated ... that is, trained in and used to researching/verifying facts (note that this says nothing about university or degrees) ... does as a matter of course before spouting off and assuming that what they think they know is fact. And yes, I am "touchy" about listening to stupid comments and stupid opinions which are misinformation. Touchy isn't the correct word, however: exasperated and frustrated are closer to the mark. Irritated and impatient when people accept this kind of bumpkin logic as truth. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
