The truth is consistent
I stopped by to talk to one of the senior professors in my department this week, to see what he thought of the universities where I have offers. It turned out that his impressions of different places were very similar to mine. "I think you’ll find that the truth is consistent," he said. "I’d throw out any data points that aren’t consistent." Which is all a very science-y way of saying, yes, different places do have certain characters– certain relative advantages and disadvantages that you can get a fairly good idea of by, say, visiting for two days and talking to 20 or 30 different people (me) or being in the field for 30 years (him).
This got me thinking about my blog… is the truth consistent, I wonder? Though my blog is anonymous, I try to write only things that I could stand behind, if someone asked me about them in person. Sometimes I have deleted a few posts afterwards because I didn’t think they met this criterion. So I think my blog is roughly consistent with the real me… not a complete picture, but consistent. I am curious, though.
“not a complete picture, but consistent”
e.g. just like science?
Comment by Lab Lemming — June 2, 2007 @ 3:48 am
I don’t get it. Does he mean go somewhere that exhibits no dissenting opinions among the people you talked to? Please explain, if you understand how to make this concept work when applied on a single visit.
Comment by msphd — June 3, 2007 @ 7:17 pm
I think he meant, roughly, that if everyone you talked to sounds kind of negative about some aspect of the place, except for one person who gives you a completely different story, then maybe there is some reason that person is an exception and you should be a little curious/suspicious about believing him/her without further info.
Comment by drshellie — June 4, 2007 @ 7:10 pm