slug.com slug.com

1 0

Tucker's probably not going to win this argument. Tucker Carlson used his Fox News show to belittle incoming First Lady Jill Biden over her use of "doctor" for her PhD in education. The Fox News host called her "borderline illiterate." I don't know, when I went to college we used to call professors who had PhD's in education "doctor", so what's changed? It's part of an ongoing negative trend. Instead of attacking the message, you attack the messenger.

[msn.com]

TyKC 7 Dec 17
Share

Be part of the movement!

Welcome to the community for those who value free speech, evidence and civil discourse.

Create your free account

1 comment

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

Tucker made three pretty good points. First, insisting that other people call you Doctor when you have an Ed.D is pretentious, especially when you’re not in an academic environment and you’re not even in a job that requires or utilizes that degree. Second, Ms. Biden’s dissertation is of dubious quality and tends to belie her asserted credentials. And third, the fact that she was able to skate through the program despite her poor performance on her dissertation is symptomatic of the abysmal state of our country’s educational system.

Why training educators is viewed by some as an inferior profession, I will leave to its proponents to explain. It's not true that she is not in a job that requires or utilizes that degree. She teaches at a institution that requires an advanced degree. It is my understanding that she wishes to continue her career while being first lady. In my early days, I was trained as a teacher and the people who educated me all had Ed.Ds and we addressed them as "Dr." and no one thought them somehow undeserving of the title.

If her dissertation contains the mass of spelling errors as Carlson claims, this is more a reflection on the doctorial thesis examiners and the committee rather than the student. Any committee who would allow such a thing brings discredit upon the institution. The fact that Carlson completely misses this point speaks volumes about his critical thinking skills, or more to the point, the lack there of. He suffers from the very infliction he accuses the public education system of failing to provide. Moreover, the so called spelling errors he alludes to are instead hyphenated words that aren't usually hyphenated but can be. Not even the staunchest literary critic would regard this as a unforgivable literary sin.

Finally, the US higher public education system is the envy of the world. That's just a fact. Attend any graduate school in America and you will find that the majority of students are foreigners. Why would foreign countries invest their money and send their students to be educated here if our system is so inferior? And why are not American students afforded the same opportunities? Moreover, Carlson is passing judgement upon the merits of a dissertation on a subject he knows little or nothing about. Physics is a subject area that I feel relatively versed in and able to comment on with some degree of competence. I would never presume to criticize a dissertation in another field where my knowledge of the subject was lacking. The fact that Carlson does this reinforces the idea that he lacks critical thinking skills and suffers from narcissistic incompetence.

You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:162917
Slug does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.