Ireland's Chief Science Advisor has bogus degree

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by galanga, Oct 11, 2005.

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  1. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Civic-mindedness is noble. Welcome aboard, Qwerty!
     
  2. Qwerty

    Qwerty New Member

    Thanks! :)
     
  3. oxpecker

    oxpecker New Member

    I don't think it's noble. In all seriousness, I believe that this sort of meddling is deeply and fundamentally immoral.
     
  4. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    After all the meandering this could use some clarification. Can you expand on what is the meddling and by whom?
     
  5. Qwerty

    Qwerty New Member

    If this guy was employed in the private sector well that might be one thing. But holding a state job he is answerable to the public who pay his salary. If his phd is totally legitimate from a totally legitimate university and if it holds up compared with accepted academic standards, well then he has nothing to fear. If however it doesn't surely the taxpayers are entitled to know that. In fairness to the people who earn their degrees the legitimate way, the questions about Pacific Western University have to be looked into. To ignore that would, I think, be wrong.
     
  6. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I'm interested in seeing you state your own views. So far you have avoided doing so.

    Why is this case a "litmus test"? What do you think that the issues are? What is it illustrating?

    Why do you think that Pacific Western isn't fake? What is Pacific Western University in your estimation? How would you characterize it? What credibility would you give a PWU doctorate?

    Finally, what implication does a gentleman's work history have for the credibility of the educational credentials that he claims? (Shades of brown teal.) Is it possible to have a career so illustrious that any degree claim that one makes is rendered true and valid?

    This guy is scientific advisor to the government of the Irish Republic. Presumably his duties involve matters of scientific education and the training and qualifications of Irish scientific workers. So why isn't a demonstrated willingness to accept what are apparently questionable credentials relevant to his own suitability for the job that he currently holds? Would he advise Irish students contemplating a scientific career to do what he did? Would he counsel Irish government and industry to hire researchers with the kind of academic credentials that he himself boasts?

    It seems to me that there's a prima facie problem here. Obviously the possibility exists that a Pacific Western biotechnology doctorate is an excellent credential and that there's no problem at all. But that argument remains to be made.
     
  7. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Fianna Follies

    I know from personal experience that the PWU doctoral process is simply silly. I've posted the details on that earlier. It is an outrage upon the taxpayers of the Republic of Ireland that a man who thinks the PWU process is solid should be swilling at the public waterhole and feeding from the public trough, let alone assessing the merits of advanced scientific projects. If he can't figure out the difference between a real and a sham doctorate, he has no business doing what he does. Will I contact the person linked above? No. Why not?

    1) I am not a citizen of the Republic of Ireland.

    2) Mr McSweeney apparently cavorts on the same credibility trampoline as his boss Teabag Bertie Ahern, who quoth:

    'We are not going to apologise for any small role we may have played in helping to remove a dictator who made his people suffer for 20 years, carried out horrific acts and didn't care about democracy. He is gone now, and thank God for that.' (May, 2003 - speaking of the war in Iraq)
    'We were always dead against the war.' (December, 2003)

    Uh huh. Sure we're glad you cleared that one up, Bertie.

    Dev (who did advanced calculus on his cell wall when imprisoned by the British) would hang his head in shame at this.
     
  8. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I guess that my policy is to minimize harm.

    In the case of 'outing' someone, real harm can be done. An individual's career can be destroyed. That has to be balanced against whatever harm might result should the individual remain in place. In some cases, such as practicing medicine without a license, I'm all for 'outing'. But if an otherwise qualified individual simply sports a vanity 'degree' that isn't even required for the position, I would oppose 'outing'.

    In this McSweeney case, the cat is already out of the bag. The Irish press is all over it. The political opposition is stroking it. So there's no question of 'outing' anyone. He's already out and flaming.

    There does seem to have been some confusion in Irish news stories. They seem unaware of the fact that there were two PWU's for a time, one teaching business in California and the other teaching everything else from out of a Hawaii address. Not that it really matters very much, but an e-mail to an Irish reporter might help to clear that up and make subsequent stories more accurate.

    But I don't think that Degreeinfo should start any kind of campaign to flood an Irish politician's office with highly opinionated and not always well-informed e-mails from (mostly) America. It's hard to imagine what that would achieve. All we would probably end up doing is harassing some poor clerical employee in Dublin.

    So I think that I agree with Oxpecker about Qwerty's crusade, even though the massively endowed one's way of saying it did make me a little angry.
     
  9. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

  10. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Um, Bill, an oxpecker is an African bird. An ox pecker isn't.
     
  11. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    Picking nits:

    [​IMG]
     
  12. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    Decimon made an apposite funny

    Ow. Ow. I hurt meself larfin.
     
  13. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Gee and someone who leads with this should be taken seriously?

    I'm sure the Minister's office is capable of figuring this out for themselves, without a swarm of self-righteous assholes pestering them with half-informed comments.

    The person in question is a scientist and an academic, in addition to being a public figure. That makes debate about his credentials utterly relevant and important. Your attempt to dismiss it with name-calling and insults is contemptable, demonstrating who, indeed, is the true "self-righteous asshole." :rolleyes:
     
  14. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Okay, I'll admit it: I often don't get what you say. But this was as funny a thing as I've seen on this board in a long, long time! LOL!:D
     
  15. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    So, here's my own opinions. PWU is a diploma mill. A public official claiming a bogus degree should be "outed". In this case having people from all over the world write to Ireland telling them that PWU is a diploma mill, won't accomplish anything that I can see.
     
  16. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    I thought the name-calling over the top and had some fun with that, but...I share with ox and the two Bills some reservations about the avenging angels and their zealous pursuit of people like McSweeney. Yes he forked it but there may be more twixt the tines than we can know.
     
  17. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    no e-mails from me

    I wouldn't waste typing time to help another nitwit Fianna Fail government figure out how to wipe its own arse.
     
  18. George Brown

    George Brown Active Member

  19. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    George, thanks for the link to the new article.

    I enjoyed his statement about PWU being significantly different now than when he "earned" his PhD there. That might be a fib that I hadn't heard before!
     
  20. jimnagrom

    jimnagrom New Member

    I dunno - does Bush have any friends with that degree?
     

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