It’s garbage because her dissertation is garbage.
Other than Michael Mann, I don’t know any PhD physicists who insist on being called “Dr.” That vanity is reserved for less secure people with lesser degrees.
[Update a while later]
Hans Bader isn’t impressed, either.
[Update early afternoon]
[Saturday-afternoon update]
Jill Biden: “I worked really hard on this.”
She doesn’t realize that makes it even worse.
This reminds of of the time when I was on a cruise and discussing climate alarmism with another passenger. I am definitely in the skeptic camp and he was a committed alarmist and while I was bringing up facts, physics and geology, all he had was appeal to authority. In exasperation, he finally huffed and puffed, inflated his chest and said “Well I have a PhD in physics!”. I replied “Well so do I and what does that have to do with anything?”.
Although some people have called me Dr (usually jokingly because I’m married to a PhD and MD), I’ve never requested that anyone do so. Just a wee bit pretentious.
I don’t mind academics insisting on it in academic contexts, because it’s evidently standard usage in that area.
I mind any of them insisting on it elsewhere, in America, where is it not standard practice.
Go to Germany if you want the full “Herr Doktor Professor” treatment.
(On Biden, it’s just kinda sad, because it’s not even a “real Doctorate”, as I understand things.)
One needs to be careful in Germany, as the “Dr.” title is legally protected, and there have been high-profile prosecutions of people with foreign PhDs for merely including “Dr.” on their business card when resident in Germany.
After more then a half-dozen prominent Max Planck Institute academics had complaints made against them, the rules have been made a bit more rational, but even now a US Ed.D. might be unlikely to be considered equivalent to a ‘third-cycle’ degree in the Bologna system.
Heh. I can recall no fewer than three poli-sci professors at my undergrad school who insisted on being addressed as “Dr.” by students, and watching “Big Bang Theory seemed about right too.
But I rather doubt more than maybe one of the poli-sci profs would have demanded his rank from lay people — and he was full of himself because he <gasp> wrote a book. About poli-sci. That he required in class.
Yeah.
Me, I’m a college dropout, so I’m just a rocket plumber.
I hope that you are at least fractionally as prosperous as Bill Gates?
Those examples from the article are indeed atrocious. For that matter, I looked up Michele Obama’s masters thesis and it is was extremely weak as well.
“Weak” is being kind. It’s neo-Marxist Black Liberation doubletalk mixed with academic gobbledygook.
Kyle really got the river of hate from Twitterverse today over that.
I have to say, I was wondering if his take was excessively harsh. Then I started reading the dissertation. Yikes.
I always understood the custom was that doctors of medicine (incl. optometry and dentistry, and maybe, on a good day if you squint, veterinary science) get to be called “Doctor” in most public settings, and all other kinds of doctorates get the privilege nowhere beyond a classroom or possibly the professor’s office hours. This is why I could get genuinely irritated when I heard a reference to “Dr. Kissinger,” or (yes) “Dr. Gingrich.”
All this discussion about someone’s prefix. In the age of deciding one’s own pronouns that others must use; I declare my prefix and pronoun to be HRH. I’ve done as much to earn it is as the Prince of Cambridge.
Then there’s the Doctor of Divinity, which legitimizes too many Reverend Doctor Racebaiters.
Americans are indoctrinated by spending about a decade and a half obeying “educators” whose authority comes only from their academic titles. If one degree is good, three must be better.
It has been noted elsewhere that the New York Times is ignoring its own style guide by calling Biden’s missus Dr. when it calls everyone else, including Dr. Ben Carson, Mr. or the equivalent. I just recalled the NYT refuses to use Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s title either. Engineering degrees matter!
I always wondered about the Rayna character, “Mr. Flint’s” protege in Star Trek’s Requiem for Methuselah, who had “3 PhD’s” or some such academic qualification in the 23rd Century.
What does a person do getting 3 PhD’s? A PhD awards a title to someone who has received training in scientific research. You know how to do research in a new field that interests you and publish a paper, already? What does having a second PhD even mean?
What does a person do getting 3 PhD’s?
It’s a thing to collect. I don’t worry about people getting three PhDs any more than I worry about people getting all the Pokemons.
I worry about such things.
I serve on the PhD Graduate studies committee of a department in a College of Engineering at a public university.
It consumes resources. A person with one PhD should just get a job.
It consumes resources. A person with one PhD should just get a job.
Universities have plenty of resources that need consuming. I can’t help but notice, for example, that there’s considerably less demand for doctoral degrees in academia than there is graduate students (and that many PhD subjects have little demand for them outside of academia). Getting additional PhDs can mean that one stays employed.
Three PhDs is nothing. If you ever watched “Quantum Leap”, the lead character had six PhDs!
Dr. Samuel “Sam” Beckett (played by Scott Bakula, who also narrates the episodes in character) is a quantum physicist with six doctoral degrees. He grew up on his parents’ farm in Elk Ridge, Indiana, with an older brother (Tom) and a younger sister (Katie). Sam’s idol is Albert Einstein.
Of course the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if all of this hoopla over her degree is just the very start of the plan to discredit the Bidens to make the way for Kamala
I think is is a pure case of the Streisand Effect.
If Dr. Biden hadn’t made such a protest, no one would have taken a look at her dissertation. Now it is a social thing to look up the dissertation and rank people who use “Dr.” in public?
Last night the Bidens were guests on the Stephen Colbert (aka “State-shtuppin’ Steve”) show, and the CBS announcer in the promo heralding their appearance made sure the peasantry knew they were getting both Sleepy Joe and DOCTOR Jill Biden.
It is like a title of nobility to the credentialed class. Before you know it, they will demand a state sponsored stipend. Where does it end though? Will everyone with a Masters degree demand to be called Master so and so and how will that go over with the commie pendants?
I’ll never forget Barbara Walters’ fawning interview of Doctor Fidel Castro – an honorific which she repeatedly and emphatically used. Castro had a legitimate “doctor of law” degree from 1950, and an honorary “doctorate” bestowed by the Soviet Union well after he became a communist dictator. Neither justified Walters addressing him as “doctor” at all.
If you earn your title in academia – go ahead and use it in academia. Outside of academia – if you want people to use your academic title – you should get used to being called Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms, or Hey You.
If your career carries a title with it, such as a medical doctor or knight – then people should use that honorific.
All of the vets I’ve known used D.Vm. which is appropriate and descriptive. I think most would have thought that Dr. was a bit pretentious for someone that spent some part of most days with their arm stuck up a cows ass. Proctologists don’t think the same way.
When will they get around to discovering that “Dr.” Jill’s only actual academic accomplishment was bankrupting a small college and avoiding fraud charges.