15 thoughts on “MIT Abandons Its Mission”

  2. “It has become fashionable in some circles to claim that “cancel culture is just holding people accountable.” I challenge you to read the material that led to the attacks against me and find anything that would require me being held “accountable.””

    Oh, he still hasn’t learned. Perfect example of how smart people can be quite dumb. His entire academic life took place while some of the worst of this Progressive Marxist stuff was taking hold but it didn’t become an issue until he got cancelled.

    Well, welcome aboard Mr. Abbot. It is great to see you but if you wouldn’t mind, please leave your other Progressive Marxist beliefs behind.

    1. I suspect he’s he’s a scientist who tended to assume that most of the woke BS was so self evidently stupid that it was really worth thinking about. Except it all it needed was a few converts in positions of power to make everyone’s lives miserable.

  3. This all is approaching a point where it’s no longer going to be about free speech. It’s about a future where your child needs an operation and she’s stuck with a surgeon who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near an operating room. And there’s going to be no way to determine that ahead of time. Or a surgical team relying on equipment programmed by someone who should never have been allowed near a compiler.

    1. Curt I somewhat disagree here. There is another layer of education for doctors and less officially engineers. For doctors the process is formalized as “the internship”. Which, for surgeons, is really an apprenticeship. This is where the real training takes place. You kill someone on the operating table and there are consequences.

      For engineers the apprenticeship takes place informally on the job. Your first job is under an experienced senior or principal level engineer. Unless your work at college was so advanced at either the Master’s or PhD level that you get assigned “a team”. But that is rare and usually happens only after you have established a demonstrable track record in academia. Paper writers only need not apply.

      Of course it doesn’t always work. Esp. at startups. A since retired colleague of mine often laments about “children writing code”. Another favorite line of his is: “Company X claims to have discovered/invented Y”, when we both knew it was demonstrably used in mil/space-applications or academia 20 years earlier”. That’s another favorite.

      1. For engineers the apprenticeship takes place *formally* on the job if they want a P.Eng certificate.

        2. I’m willing to bet anyone who was involved in denying any “engineer” employed by FIGG Bridge Group a PE cert because of test scores on the registration exam would quickly realize why they maybe shouldn’t have done that.

          FIGG Bridge Engineers specializes in the management of diverse engineering teams for major bridge transportation projects and in the design of major concrete segmental bridges.

          Six people dead. Not on an operating table but just as dead.

          1. A National Transportation Safety Board report into the collapse concluded that design calculation errors made by MCM’s consultant Figg Bridge Engineers were ultimately to blame. But failures by the independent design checker, client, contractor and on-site construction supervisor also contributed to the disaster.
            …
            In a post-collapse interview, the Louis Berger engineer who conducted the peer review told the NTSB that the agreed budget did not stretch to this level of analysis.

            Investigators also found that Louis Berger failed to meet FDOT requirements for a peer reviewer to employ at least three registered professional engineers, each with a minimum of five years’ experience in designing complex concrete bridges.

            Louis Berger performed the independent peer review of Figg’s design using Adina, a finite element analysis software program, in accordance with FDOT standards. Post-collapse, Louis Berger confirmed to NTSB investigators that it analysed the design as one structure in its completed state. It only analysed the design for the completed structure and not for its various construction phases.

            https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/fiu-bridge-collapse-lessons-learnt-three-years-since-florida-tragedy-15-03-2021/

  4. I agree with Curt except that day is already here in many respects. Nowadays, higher education is neither higher nor education. The effects this is already having on all sectors of our culture and way of life are compounding daily.

    America will fail slowly, then all at once. After that, the idiocracy and joys of third world living.

    1. It is my sincere hope that more and more young people go to trade school and earn professional “licenses”. Worth far more that your typical Liberal Arts diploma. Once you’ve secured an income with your trade profession, there is always part-time college to get that Liberal Arts degree in art history.

      1. Mechanical engineer friend’s son is doing just at. Son is more than half way through electrical fitter apprenticeship. After 4 years years he has a guaranteed job with the electrical supply company and will be $200,000 ahead of having gone to university for an engineering degree for which jobs are scarce. Smart kid.

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