New wrinkle in the "Is the JD a doctorate?" debate

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Anthony Ciolli, Aug 30, 2003.

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  1. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I suppose that's true. I know that researchers in Social Science frequently consult a Ph.D. statistician when designing their research methodologies to make sure that the numbers will have statistical significance.

    Still, I AM amazed at what I sometimes find. One well known English Ph.D. criminologist published the results of his study saying that 12% of all convicted prisoners in H.M. prison system vociferously claim innocence. This figure was used to show that the system of plea bargaining was causing people to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit rather than risk conviction of more serious offenses at trial.

    As a number, it may say exactly what it seems to say. However, it is valueless for two reasons:

    -Any practicing criminal defense lawyer will tell you that there frequently is NO connection between a client's "story" and the facts. The more serious the charge or "experienced" the defendant, the truer this is. They lie. It's a simple as that!

    -"Innocence" means diffeent things to different people. To the layman, it usually means "committed no crime at all". To a lawyer, it may mean "did not commit the offense charged but may have committed lesser or different offenses." To a defendant, it FREQUENTLY means "I don't FEEL guilty" or "What I did wasn't wrong" or even "The witnesses lied and if my lawyer were any good, he'd of gotten me off."

    Now that sort of understanding is more likely to come from a lawyer, I think, than from a Social Scientist.
     
  2. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    I'm amazed at what I find also. My wife and I play a little game of it, me with my legal background and her with her Math and Stats background: whenever we hear this or that report of this or that finding based on the research of the eminent social scientist Dr. Joe/Jane Bombast, Ph.D., we like to see how many holes we can find in Dr. Joe's/Jane's methods, or fundamental flaws of reason, or confusion of cause-effect, etc.

    We're rarely disappointed. Some of these people with gaudy titles couldn't reason their way out of a paper bag; I've personally been acquainted with far more people who can really follow through with logic and reason in the practice of law than in tenured positions in higher education, and I've known a fair number of both camps.

    Let them have their flowing colorful robes and their beefeater hats, but I'm not sure I agree with you when you say they've done something beyond your accomplishments when they land the Ph.D. versus your "mere" J.D., Bar passage, and LL.M.--personally, I'll take the latter for rigor and accomplishment, particularly if you can pull off the coup of passing the UoL thing DL.

    My sample may be small and my evidence anecdotal, but I tell you, I'll bet if you could administer some type of standardized logic and reason test to 1,000 PhDs in the Soc Sciences and 1,000 attorneys-at-law, the latter group would swamp the former.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 24, 2005
  3. frankbee

    frankbee New Member

    Definition of 'Juris Doctor - JD'
    A law degree in the United States that was originally designed as a replacement to the Bachelor of Laws degree. A Juris Doctor or Juris Doctorate (JD) represents professional recognition that the holder has a doctoral degree in law. Due to the length of study that most lawyers in the U.S. have to take to attain a law degree, the name change reflected its status as a professional degree. As in other special degrees which also do not have medical or study of medicine as ones discipline as education or philosophy Juris DR is as it stands "Doctor" Thus the Title "Dr." as
     
  4. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    The fact that you dredged up a thread from 2005 says something just a tiny bit skreechy but the fact that you offered a definition without citing the source just kills you on the spot. Now sleep that deepest of sleeps.
     
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