List of worthless college degrees

[Zap]

I would have to disagree with you on that one. I think there is value in a business degree. There is value in architecture, law, chemistry, physics, life sciences, etc. In those endeavors the student can apply the knowledge gained to real situations that they could not if they had not had the education.

I perceive this question to be whether a given degree truly is educative - ie, whether it leads, or has led, one out of ignorance. And not just in some narrow matter of specialist esoterica or rote knowledge, which any old fool can do in a library, but in a broad sense of mentoring a person up and out of their superstition, their prejudice, their dogmatism and their provincialism, whilst training their mind to be precise, their arguments to be compelling, their beliefs to be mature, and their taste to be cultivated. These are ideals, to be sure, and different courses of study at different institutions yield different results - and most don't try at all.

This question is not therefore, for me, in any sense about the vulgar economics of one qualification over another. That it is for so many others here is no credit to them, nor to the society or the institutions which moulded them.

 

[joepistole]

I think there is value in a general education, one that gives the student a good background and teaches one to think critically...does not happen often enough today I would agree.

 

[Asguard]

yes well lets just say from what i have seen of the US health system i wouldnt exactly praise it on its ETHICS. Telling a man to get his brothers tested to see if they were a donor match and then refusing to let them donate when they find a perfect match is more the way a sociopath would work than an ethical person.

Oh and i forgot the other use for ethics counciles, quite stupidly. Three actually run at my uni, one deals with animal testing, the second with clinical trials and the third deals with the other types of resurch on humans (social resurch ect). They oversee all of the resurch carried out at the university and atached hospital and no resurch can start untill it has aproval not just from the facalty as to its scientific benifit but also the ethics commity as to wether it is acceptable resurch. Again i direct you to the Cartwright Inquiry and the nazi doctors if you think scientists should be left to make these decisions for themselves

 

[joepistole]

yes well lets just say from what i have seen of the US health system i wouldnt exactly praise it on its ETHICS. Telling a man to get his brothers tested to see if they were a donor match and then refusing to let them donate when they find a perfect match is more the way a sociopath would work than an ethical person.

Oh and i forgot the other use for ethics counciles, quite stupidly. Three actually run at my uni, one deals with animal testing, the second with clinical trials and the third deals with the other types of resurch on humans (social resurch ect). They oversee all of the resurch carried out at the university and atached hospital and no resurch can start untill it has aproval not just from the facalty as to its scientific benifit but also the ethics commity as to wether it is acceptable resurch. Again i direct you to the Cartwright Inquiry and the nazi doctors if you think scientists should be left to make these decisions for themselves

I think no one here is saying research should not have oversite. All research requires funding and whoever is providing the funding is going to want some oversight.

Ethics committees are not without merit. I don't think no one here has made such an arguement. However, I have stated that ethics is not an appropriate field of study. Ethics requires no more than applied common sense. Anything more than that is a waste.

The ethics of the American medical system is not an issue. I have several problems with the American healthcare system as often expressed in Sciforums. But the issue you brought forth with juveniles is not a medical issue so much as it is a parental rights issue.