Why they're worthless now: everyone has them, and they're easy or at least predictable enough that they have little predictive value.

Nope. There is an assumption in your statement -- that all college degrees are created equal.

There is a reason certain schools and certain programs are given preferential treatment. You see, in statistics, there are two types of errors -- Type I and Type II.

Imagine a candidate applies to a top school -- pretty much all highly ranked schools and programs would err on the side of Type II. That is, they would rather reject a good candidate than admit a potentially bad candidate. That is not to say it does not happen, just that that is what they try to do.

The reason MIT or Harvard are prestigious is because of this. As an employer, you can use these schools as a filter. It is not that you learn something extraordinary at MIT's engineering department that you wouldn't at, say, Rutgers. But the point is, MIT has a high enough standard for both admission and graduation that you know someone who graduated from MIT is a rock star. The same goes for business schools, law schools, medical schools and so on.

The only exceptions are doctoral programs -- why? Because PhDs have other factors at play, including your area of research and your thesis advisor.

Who YOU callin' a "bysshe", bysshe?

Mr. Shelly and I are on first-name basis, despite his untimely expiration on the capsize of the Ariel, some two centuries nigh. I thought nearly all speakers of English to also be so familiar. Please forgive the oversight.

If a department is not serving its stated function, and cannot propose a rational plan for doing so, then it should be eliminated because it's a waste of our money, and therefore our time and effort.

Huh? What does this even mean? You sound as if you are regurgitating the small government propaganda without any sound argument.

The stated function is funding research, and that's getting done. The rational plan is funding scientists who are the most eligible to win the research grants. What is so hard about that?

The problem is the expectation of something "fruitful" to come out of research. As any half-decent scientist will tell you, a lot of good science comes from learning from our failures, and examining questions that may seem pointless today.

NSF grants have funded several amazing scientists and their research -- how do you even *begin* to "measure" the purpose of scientific research? The whole idea behind scientific research is asking questions that may seem trivial or even meaningless. The only viable measure is publications, and even that is meaningless -- would you rather have one outstanding paper every decade or a bunch of pointless papers to check a box?

The myopic outlook that decries large government also decries spending on science and research, never mind the fact that open science is what helps civilization as a whole. Closed research funded by the beck and call of corporations defeats the scientific process -- science is about openness, understanding, and investigating hard questions that may not have tangible benefits for the next few hundred years or more.

And sometimes, that means our time and effort are spent doing absolutely silly things that may have impacts that we do not yet understand. If pursuit of knowledge for its own sake isn't a good enough reason, then I weep for the future of this country.

Don't you think having AC's live forever is a good idea? :-)

And herein lies the rub: I'm no more responsible for, say the Roman Church than you are for the U.S.S.R., for all the Commies were the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
And you can hate the meaning of life as much as I hate anyone trying to enshrine the state as God in any way.

Bwahahaha. I halfway think you believe yourself.

I get it! You consider counterfactuals to be "proof". It's all so clear now.

I'm fully aware that I'm contending with a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire_cat and you're going to substitute verbal evasion for rational argument.

That has to win some kind of award for perverse, left-handed logic. You appear to be saying that cowardice is the new courage. No, he's the President, and this is his dirty diaper. He owns this legacy, picked lock, corrupted stock, and perforated barrel.

I have? Can you help me pinpoint precisely where, so I can offer a apology in detail?

Look, my wife did a Master's program in public health. Can we agree that the marketplace for healthcare in the U.S. is screwed up beyond all recognition? It's all coming to a climax. I can venture that, while ObamaCare is a river of lies, and has been as false as the Democrats that passed it, there is a chance of recovery, after the destruction. Just as long as we don't double down on dumb and go for Single Prayer. That idiocy has failed badly enough in the UK.

So you both assert that I am less than forthright in a quest for a proper impeachment, which, who knows, could exhonerate Obama? What if it showed "not one smidgen" of cowardice, inattention to duty, or disregard for subordinates? I guess I'm missing the point here: why aren't we getting the story out there, and celebrating this paragon of leadership righteousness?

Can we be perfectly clear and agree that "Socialism", like "Fascism" has so much mud in the water that we can come up with copious examples that are both "correct" and contradictory?
I am comfortable that you are intellectually incapable of permitting yourself to be pinned down on any definition that is less than positive, irrespective of facts or history.
You own the negative examples of Socialism to the extent that I own Westboro Baptist Church.
Can we agree there?

I mean, after all of your effort to re-brand Obama as a conservative, you have the laughable gall to bemoan my calling this tripe "Socialism"? Do you ever listen to your absurd self, ever?

Fine. Say something positive about the idea. Say something as profound as

I promise to do my best to simulate taking something you say seriously.

Go for it, Your Moral Superiority.