Monday, May 13, 2013

A Harvard Ph.D

http://www.thenation.com/blog/174291/harvard-phd-and-hispanics-iq-how-jason-richwines-dissertation-got-him-fired-heritage-fou#
The last paragraph "The last word in this story goes a study published in 2012 the journal Psychological Science. “In an analysis of two large-scale, nationally representative United Kingdom data sets (N = 15,874),” the researchers wrote, “we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood.”"
I have seen a few mathematics dissertations from prestigious universities of USA (and India too) which are nor correct. In the Us cases I know, the committee members, all from the same department, just went along with the adviser, who was very reputed but careless. In one Indian case, I told the candidate that there was a mistake at the very beginning which invalidates the whole thesis and he got his degree anyway. When I requested for a copy of the thesis through inter library loan, there was no response. In another case, I excused myself since the thesis was very weak and the candidate was in our department. Later he got his Ph.D but I did not see for which thesis. I heard that he could not answer a question in his oral examinations and was beaten up by his adviser. Some Indian oral examinations seem more serious than the American ones.
P.S.http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/05/department-of-huh-george-borjas-says-richard-zeckhauser-chaired-jason-richwines-thesis-committee.html where Borjas says that Richard Zackhauser was the chairman of the thesis committee but the thesis is posted at Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/jason-richwine-dissertation_n_3240168.html

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