Scottish Nous

What Can't You Do With A Philosophy Degree?

Worries about just what standardized tests prove aside, I'm going to follow Vintage Piranha by pointing out that GRE takers who intend to pursue a graduate degree in philosophy drastically outperform all other GRE takers on the verbal reasoning and analytical writing sections of the test.  Data is available here.  Their analytical writing mean is 5.1 out of a possible 6.0, and their verbal reasoning mean is 589 out of a possible 800.  Compare with physics and astronomy (4.5/534), engineering (4.2/467), biological sciences (4.4/491), chemistry (4.4/487), english language and literature (4.9/559), early childhood education (4.1/418) and the social sciences (4.5/486).

Philosophers don't totally dominate the field when it comes to quantitative reasoning, but they do pretty well.  Like the verbal reasoning, this section is scored out of 800 possible points.  Vintage Piranha places them in fifteenth place out of a field of fifty, yet this is only because he counts each of the seven engineering disciplines (civil, mechanical, electrical, etc...) separately.  If we collapse the engineers into one class, the philosophers (636) lose only to the economists (706) and financiers (barely - 637), engineers (720), mathematicians (733), chemists (682), earth scientists (again, barely - 637), physicists/astronomers (738) and computer scientists (704).  I place them at 9th place in a field of thirty-six (by collapsing education as well).  For a discipline in the humanities with terribly low (university imposed) mathemtical requirements, that's pretty slick.

It is also well-known that philosophers (along with classicists) dominate the LSAT.  A list of the estimated IQ's of some of known history's greatest thinkers includes a proportionate number of philosophers, that is, the high number of philosophers one would expect.  You can also input some of your own scores to get some interesting interconversions and percentile data.  (Who knows how reliable this is.)  My GRE scores, for the record, were 650 (verbal), 780 (quantitative) and 6.0 (analytical writing).  According to the calculator here, that's the 99.865 percentile, a number which is at least roughly confirmed by the non-specialized standardized test data I have available.  Having never studied or reviewed for any general academic test in my life (in my case, the TCAP, PSAT, ACT, and GRE), this warms me over.  I'm done tooting my own horn.  For a little more data and a WSJ clipping, go here.

The Worst Argument Ever for the Divine Authorship of Scripture

I give you, for your amusement, an excerpt from the preface of John W. Haley's Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible:

The author was moved to prepare and publish the present volume by the circulation of a pamphlet, in a certain parish, setting forth in a striking and plausible manner the so-called "self-contradictions of the Bible."  This production, cunningly adapted to deceive the ignorant and unwary, was reviewed by me in a course of Sabbath-evening lectures, which form the nucleus of the present work.  The pamphlet just mentioned, with many others of a similar character, I afterwards found to be the fruits of an organized and systematic plan to poison the public mind by scattering broadcast, in the cars and upon steamboats, and in other places of public resort, as well as through the mails, a cheap and virulent infidel literature.  That these nefarious attempts result, in far too many cases, in subverting the religious faith and the morals of the young, there can be no question.  And the means employed by the friends of virtue for exposing and defeating these "devices of Satan" seem, I regret to say, less efficient than is desirable.

The preface is thoroughly populated with references to infidels.  Haley is "hard core".  At least, that is how my girlfriend pithily described the overbearing calvinistic tones up to the glorious loss of the soul even to which the Almighty God has decreed that the "discrepancies"  be "permitted to exist" within the canon.  Yet perhaps the most amusing portion of the book consists of one argument, given in the chapter "Design of the Discrepancies", for the inclusion  of countless prima facie inconsistencies.  I quote:

In nature, then, we perceive mighty discords, tremendous antagonisms, which in appearance seriously involve and militate against the character and attributes of God.  Nevertheless, nature is confessedly his work.  Now, we find the Bible claiming the same supernatural origin, and exhibiting, among other features of resemblance, similar, though far less important, discrepancies; hence these latter afford a valid presumption in favor of its claim.

Permit me to summarize this argument:  The world is areally shitty place, yet God nevertheless created the world.  God is, therefore, the creator of a piece of pretty shitty work.  The Bible also appears to be piece of pretty shitty work.  Therefore, God is probably responsible for it.

Epistemic/Metaphysical Modal Confusion

From an old conversation (with a very bright philosopher) that brings back fond memories:

Scott Hagaman:  After all, it seems to me that there's always the possibility I could be wrong.
Sean Choi:  Hey, it might even be actual. ;)