Why aren't Spock, Data, LaForge, Dax, etc PhDs?
- Thread starter Sisko_is_my_captain
- Start date
Oh, come on! People have been talking about Dr. Spock on Star Trek since the 19s60s 
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/que...liest-instance-of-spock-being-called-dr-spock
I'll get my hat.
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/que...liest-instance-of-spock-being-called-dr-spock
I'll get my hat.
:/
I guess I need to work on my timing. Hopefully, somebody, somewhere, got the joke.
That's me.
When I graduated, I tried to get into academia, but it's tough. There are a lot of politics involved. Universities do a search but they typically already have someone chosen for the job. Plus, when you're there, you're fighting over grants.
Initially, I wanted to do that, but I needed a job and I got one in the space sector. It took several months, mostly because, having a PhD, a lot of people don't want to hire you because they figure you're over-qualified and probably because it'd be cheaper for them to get someone with a bachelors or even a masters degree.
I'm a very detailed oriented guy and I'm good for those long term development/research projects. Basically, I really like math and physics and coding simulations in different areas. I've done lots of trajectory (ODE) sim, CFD, DSMC, plasma sim, etc. Basically, a lot of numerical work. I've managed to keep doing that despite a lot of pressure to go into the program office path which I just don't care for. I figure I got a PhD, which was painful enough, I want to use what I learned and heck, I'd rather do something that's challenging and interesting to me, even if it is often frustrating.
So, yeah, a lot of PhDs, and we have several here, are in the industry doing work just like all the great engineers who have Masters and even Bachelor degrees.
It's fine. I'm ok with how things turned out. I wish it could've been better for me, but it could have been worse, I guess. I have mixed feelings about my career path.
BTW, Gebirg, I forgot to say thanks for sharing the story about your dad! Good for him!
I don't know. I was wondering about that myself. I thought maybe it was some sort of like senior thesis for SF Academy?
In the course of Starfleet duties, an officer is referred to by Starfleet rank or position, not by academic credentials they may have (and I've stated elsewhere that I think it's doubtful that graduates of the regular four-year Starfleet academy program come out of it with doctorate degrees).
As an aside, I definitely would have gone for a master's degree if it was common practice for people to refer to somebody with a master's degree as "Master."
Kor
If being a Master is so great how those who call themselves Doctor always beat them?
But who knows what qualifications exist in the Federation and what qualification you need to be awarded the title of Doctor? Perhaps those who hold the title of Doctor are less bothered by not being addressed by that title outside of more formal settings so don't correct people when they don't use that honorific.
Quite welcome. And I'm very glad he took that path - he was the only thing standing in between me and a failing grade in College Calculus. My brain was clearly wired differently and my path was more towards software engineering (I make the computer do all the hard calculations for me), but for some perverse reason the school required one "advanced math" course, so I took the "easiest" one possible in that category. I survived with a C- and never looked back!
All the CompSci classes I took, however, I aced and graduated with honors from that department (which was, ironically, a pin-off of the math department, which would explain their math requirement). I credit my dad for getting me through that as well, as I learned coding from him when I was 11 (he had several decades of Kobol, Fortran and Pascal under his belt, hence the coding company he built) and I've been doing it now for the past 40 years (34 professionally).He's still around (retired), just turned 81, doing math problems for fun and started his own blog on the subject a couple years ago. I'm very glad to see he's not one of those octogenarians who are completely anti-tech. He still holds his own in that realm and he and I still have quite spirited discussions on modern coding practices.
AFAIK, the custom in most military and "ranked" government agencies is that academic qualifications may be used in the "signature block" for correspondence and possibly in formal situations where one's full name and credentials would be related, however in verbal address the custom is refer to all personnel -- even medical professionals -- by their rank and surname, although MDs or senior academics at schools and academies might be titled "Doctor" or "Professor" as appropriate, similar to LCDRs and CDRs billeted as CO.
If being a Master is so great how those who call themselves Doctor always beat them?
But who knows what qualifications exist in the Federation and what qualification you need to be awarded the title of Doctor? Perhaps those who hold the title of Doctor are less bothered by not being addressed by that title outside of more formal settings so don't correct people when they don't use that honorific.
I rarely get referred to as Dr. H. It's weird when it does come up, usually in a professional meeting, conference, etc. I always think they're talking about someone else and look over my shoulder.
Mr. is used and I don't correct anyone for using that. Some people are really anal about that and I don't get it. In newspapers, at least the LA Times, they only use Dr. in print to refer to Medical Doctors and the like.
I guess that would probably be different in academia, where students at least would call you Dr. or Professor. That's how I referred to my profs at the time anyway.
I work with a few Ph.Ds and a couple of MDs. Neither seem to care about titles and seem kind of surprise when I address them as "Dr. So-and-So."
Quite welcome. And I'm very glad he took that path - he was the only thing standing in between me and a failing grade in College Calculus. My brain was clearly wired differently and my path was more towards software engineering (I make the computer do all the hard calculations for me), but for some perverse reason the school required one "advanced math" course, so I took the "easiest" one possible in that category. I survived with a C- and never looked back!
He's still around (retired), just turned 81, doing math problems for fun and started his own blog on the subject a couple years ago. I'm very glad to see he's not one of those octogenarians who are completely anti-tech. He still holds his own in that realm and he and I still have quite spirited discussions on modern coding practices.
Don't count yourself short, man! Comp Sci is exactly a light subject either. Definitely a lot of abstract thinking there too as you know.
Glad to hear your dad is doing well. Treasure him. I lost mine before last Christmas.
Yeah, again, some people are really arrogant about it, especially newbies. I don't get it. Maybe they're arrogant, and/or feel they should be lauded for their brains, I don't know. I know I'm not the smartest "PhD" ever. I got through from sheer perseverance and will and, in the end, I actually have a lot of mixed feelings, as I said, in going along that path.
Honestly, I could be doing the same things I'm doing with a Masters.
Thank ye kindly. And sorry to hear about your dad. I've known other families who have lost loved ones around the holidays and it's particularly hard-hitting during such times.
I can't remember any of my profs in college insisting on being called "Doctor" or even "Professor." They were fine with it if we were more comfortable with addressing them that way, but most of them were perfectly okay with just being called by their first name. I do recall one who was okay with either of those, but made it very clear that we were never to address her as "Miss, Mrs., or Mizz!" And then there a couple of part-time adjunct instructors who I always addressed as "Doctor" out of respect... I later found out they only had masters' degrees, but they never corrected me. 
Thinking back a bit, I now recall a couple instances where an officer with a non-MD doctorate degree was referred to as "Doctor" instead of by their Starfleet rank. Ann Mulhall in "Return to Tomorrow" (mentioned earlier in this thread), and Elizabeth Dehner in "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Dehner's personnel file shows that she has a PhD, while the descriptive part refers to both training and vocation "as a psychiatrist," and dialog in the episode agrees. To be nitpicky, there's a bit of a wrinkle because in our times being a psychiatrist involves graduating from medical school and then doing a psychiatry residency and meeting certification/licensure requirements. There is no PhD as part of that whole process. In the separate field of psychology, there are PhD and PsyD degrees, but those would not qualify somebody to be a psychiatrist. Of course, those fields may be a lot different in three hundred years.
This may be an oversimplification, but the way I always understood this concept was that, in academic fields, a doctorate degree (PhD) is recognition that your dissertation (with successful defense) has contributed something new and significant to your field of study at a high level, so that goes beyond "merely" researching and mastering the body of knowledge that already existed. Hence, you have produced knowledge.
Kor
Thinking back a bit, I now recall a couple instances where an officer with a non-MD doctorate degree was referred to as "Doctor" instead of by their Starfleet rank. Ann Mulhall in "Return to Tomorrow" (mentioned earlier in this thread), and Elizabeth Dehner in "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Dehner's personnel file shows that she has a PhD, while the descriptive part refers to both training and vocation "as a psychiatrist," and dialog in the episode agrees. To be nitpicky, there's a bit of a wrinkle because in our times being a psychiatrist involves graduating from medical school and then doing a psychiatry residency and meeting certification/licensure requirements. There is no PhD as part of that whole process. In the separate field of psychology, there are PhD and PsyD degrees, but those would not qualify somebody to be a psychiatrist. Of course, those fields may be a lot different in three hundred years.
This may be an oversimplification, but the way I always understood this concept was that, in academic fields, a doctorate degree (PhD) is recognition that your dissertation (with successful defense) has contributed something new and significant to your field of study at a high level, so that goes beyond "merely" researching and mastering the body of knowledge that already existed. Hence, you have produced knowledge.
Kor
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My father had an Education Doctorate (Ed.D.) and was only referred to as Doctor when he was at work. He was a county school administrator and when he retired, most stopped calling him doctor. Some that worked with him before he retired still called him 'Doctor' most just called him by his first name.
While I can agree with the sentiment I have the view that doctors both have knowledge and are capable of producing knowledge. Most of the doctors are work with are not actively researching wile working in their specialty field. So while I appreciate the idea I feel like Ph.Ds are both, and saying they don't have knowledge feels oddly pedantic.
But, I might be being oddly pedantic myself.
I'm thinking maybe the earlier post by Bad Thoughts was inadvertently missing a word. Instead of "Doctors don't have knowledge. They produce knowledge," the idea could have been intended as "Doctors don't just have knowledge. They produce knowledge."
That's what I assumed was meant, rather than the notion that doctors don't have any knowledge. If doctors didn't have any knowledge in the first place, then it wouldn't make sense for them to be able to produce new knowledge in their fields, because they wouldn't have any foundation to build on.
Kor
Actually, I think you quite accurately quantified where I was going with this, and far more eloquently than I did. Sometimes my brain just gets too worn out to elucidate on certain things, especially close to the end of the day after an 8-hour code binge, when I just want to go home and be one with the couch.
Precisely this.
If I were to rewrite and clarify my statement, I would say, "Doctors aren't distinguished by having knowledge. They are distinguished by having produced knowledge." As you and @fireproof78 wrote, people who have earned doctorates are expected to be experts in their discipline.They have had their knowledge tested at early stages as a prerequisite to having their research proposals approved. However, I know many who surfed on a narrow knowledge base--what pertained to their research--and not a broad swath of literature and ideas from their discipline. They aren't as rounded as you might think. That's why I would put the emphasis on producing knowledge. It is the distinguishing feature. Indeed, a doctorate is more characterized by having focused on a problem or exploring a particular theory.
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