TheVineyard
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Posts posted by TheVineyard
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If you're referring to my earlier post, then it certainly was not a typo! Wisconsin notified me today that I am in the top 15 on the wait list.
He's saying that he thinks it was a typo in the email...I'm not sure I think so, considering how important of a number that was.
However, the fact that they said it was an unordered waitlist is completely incompatible with them saying to some that they are top 5 and some they are top 15.
Here's a way to eliminate the possibility of a typo. What time did we each get our emails? If the 5s came before the 15s, then we know it wasn't a typo. If the 15s came before the 5s, then perhaps they made a typo and fixed it?
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Wisconsin-Madison seems to have sent out at least 10 (probably 15) initial wait lists. Now it narrows down the wait lists to only 5 people, who have received the update email. I was wondering if the other 5 (or 10) have received notifications. Please reply here or feel free to send a PM. Thanks.
We got a mixed bag of top 15 and top 5 waitlists. I dont think they have narrowed it down to 5 because 5 have posted the email here.
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I got basically the same email, except that mine said '15' where yours said '5.'
Huh. So there actually is an order and they thought we wouldn't talk.....
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I really do not understand. You have so many much BETTER offers than UConn, why care so much about UConn? If you are offered admission at UConn, would you choose it over Stanford, Northwestern, UT-Austin? Sorry for my remarks. But I am really confused.
Agreed.
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I never would have thought this, but apparently getting into grad school is only part of the problem...you have to make sure there are people at the department once you get there. Penn seems to be making the latter a bit difficult...
Yeah I've heard about this...what happened there, and do you have any more info about the situation now?
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For PhD programs, it is expected that students will be notified about whether they are accepted/rejected/waitlisted by March 15th. If you haven't received word by March 15th, it is appropriate to ask.
As far as MA programs, they do things differently and aren't bound by the informal (or is it actually formal?) March 15th rule. -
Perhaps we should have a dedicated thread for people to post offers they have declined.
How does that help us? It only gives false hope and utterly incomplete information.
I guess I'll be downvoted for this, but that thread is no help.
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Yeah. I think my point is just that it's probably easier if you're familiar with some basics.
I mean...maybe...but it clearly has no impact on being accepted, and if being accepted is his goal, then he ought to use that time towards efforts that will benefit his application.
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I am definitely not waiting on an acceptance, I would've heard something by now for sure. But perhaps a waitlist, since Michigan has been calling people to tell them they have been waitlisted over the past few days. Who knows. Probably a rejection, but I would appreciate them at long last sending me my rejection letter along with everybody else's.
They didn't send us a rejection letter either. We had to check through the UM Friend Account.
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Solicited a generic email rejection from UC Davis (Cody Gilmore):
"I'm sorry to have to report that it is very unlikely that you will be offered admission this year. We were impressed by your application, but we received over 70 applications for only 5 spots, and the result was that there were many highly qualified applicants who we are unable to admit.
Officially, we have not yet rejected the bulk of our applicants. We have been in touch with a small group of candidates to let them know that they have been accepted, and with another small group to let them know that they are on our waitlist. For the rest, there is almost no chance that they will be accepted, and I will eventually be in touch with our official decision."I suspect the same goes for anyone else who has applied there but not heard back. Honestly it's kindof a kick in the gut to hear that they only had 70 applications, probably waitlisted or accepted 10-12 of them, and I wasn't one of them even though I fit their strengths. Meanwhile, I've been accepted or waitlisted to 6 unquestionably better (and much more competitive) programs. This really is the crappiest of crapshoots in some cases, and I've learned no backup school is safe.
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Has anyone received a rejection from UC Davis, UC Riverside, or UCLA?
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Can you please elaborate?
They might not get the best impression of you. At my school for example, they never move people up the list after visits as a rule, but sometimes people get moved down.
This probably won't happen, but just know that there are risks, and with someplace like Michigan you will be evaluated vs the best students in the world. If people get the wrong impression of you, it is POSSIBLE that it hurts you.
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I suppose my post should have gone here. I was wait listed at Michigan Ann Arbor.
I was also asked to visit the campus during prospective's week (they would flip the bill). Is this a normal thing?
Yes, but be careful. Visiting as a waitlisted student carries risks.
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I can't really speak about the situation of someone coming from a small religious school...I'm sure others can help...but I will say that working on languages shouldn't be a top priority. Almost no graduate schools require it, and it is something that most graduate programs offer/encourage so you can do it there.
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Sounds like we're on the same page.
And yes, all of the relevant data will be public, including the raw data of individual responses. I don't want to serve as a gatekeeper of information, which would set a bad precedent and would undermine the credibility of our findings.
Eek...then I won't be able to participate unfortunately. I could make a fake account and post some limited information, I guess.
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I was reading an interview with Rosenberg where he said something to the effect that he made a category mistake early in college career by studying philosophy. He thinks he maybe should have been a theoretical physicist.
I sympathize with that, and a couple of my advisors are the same way...started in philosophy but find themselves doing more science. Sometimes I feel like I want to do science more than I want to do philosophy...I have so little interest in so much of philosophy (no interest in ethics/morality, continental, early modern, ancient, medieval, or language) but I have intense focus on history of science, and the philosophy of all sciences, as well as metaphilosophy (how should we practice?) So much of it just boils down to wanting to study science and use it to answer the questions of philosophy. Sometimes I feel out of place in a room of more traditional philosophers.
See Rosenberg (1989), "The Biological Basis of Ethics: A Best Case Scenario." It's actually a really interesting article, one of my favorites in "Issues in Evolutionary Ethics" by Paul Thompson.
Thanks, I'll check this out!
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Lesage is right. Bioethics is not at all related to fields like metaethics or normative ethics. Vineyard, your statement, "I don't think that finding out 'how the study of evolution can impact philosophy and especially ethics' is separate from bioethics" is simply wrong. Do a quick search on Bioethics and you will find that Lesage's definition is the currently accepted one. You seem to be a bit confused about what philosophy of biology is, as well.
Moreover, if you are a philbio applicant, you should know that the relation between ethics and biology will not be talked about "one day," but that it is currently a very interesting, rich, and growing field. If you think I'm wrong, and that "phil biologists are not really interested in ethics," please see Ruse, Wilson (both J.Q. and E.O.), Joyce, Foot, Street, Wong, Flanagan, James, Arnhart, Casebeer, Richards, Prinz, De Waal, Boniolo, Sarkissian, Mackie, Alexander, Kitcher, Ayala, Williams, Rosenberg, Rottschaefer, Martinsen, Collier, Stingl, Buller, Fitzpatrick, Fodor, Gibbard, Greene, Haidt, Nichols, Wright, Katz, Rachels, and Axelrod, among many, many others. Also see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology
Well, I've already explained my point about the definition of terms. If you are equating bioethics with modern ethics of human biomedicine then we have no disagreement. I just see bioethics as extending further, and many others do as well. If I'm extending bioethics farther than you want to, that's fine, it's really just an issue of definition and I'm happy to concede the point.
Now, as far as the ethics thing, it was an exaggeration to say that they aren't really interested. Of course some are, many are. That was stupid of me to say. But looking through your list of names, a few of them interest me...Rosenberg for example has stated explicitly that he thinks that evolutionary biology implies ethical error theory or "nice nihilism" etc (its hard to tell exactly what position Rosenberg is taking sometimes). I guess you can call that being interested in ethics...he has an ethical viewpoint, but he doesn't spend the kind of time working on ethics like some of the others you named. I would point to him as a phil biologist who really isn't interested in ethics...there are probably 10 other philosophical/scientific subfields that he does more work on (and publishes much more in...how many publications on ethics has Rosenberg made outside of a couple chapters of his book?)
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Yes. The excitement after tomorrow will just be scattered instances of ppl being pulled off of waitlists, followed by the April 15 train wreck.
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Did you just downvote yourself?
Yeah. I'm on my phone and have fat fingers (wasn't trying to upvote myself either), lol.
He/she was just trying to throw a quick downvote to me, it seems.
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I don't want to derail this thread further, but I also don't want anyone reading that and getting the wrong idea about an important subfield of philosophy.
Bioethics is a form of applied ethics. It is concerned primarily with the ethical issues surrounding biomedical practice and research. Related issues include the impact and application of biomedical technologies, and the dissemination of scientific knowledge with respect to questions surrounding informed consent. If evolution enters the story at all, it will be in one of two ways: (1) Concerns about genetic research protocols; or (2) The application of genetic technologies, including genetic testing (e.g., privacy concerns, discrimination concerns, etc.). Bioethics is not concerned with the import of evolutionary theory per se for ethics or metaethics. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-bioethics/#BioMov, and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/theory-bioethics/.
This is the last comment I will make on the issue in this thread. Again, I apologise to the OP. Hopefully, others will have more helpful and relevant contributions.
Although you probably think your view is the only view, there is quite a bit of debate regarding what the scope of bioethics is. Some (like yourself) think that bioethics is essentially the ethics of modern human medicine. Many others (including the bioethicist I've studied under) see bioethics as extending to practical animal ethics (and therefore animal consciousness) which, of course, is in the wheelhouse of evolutionary studies. Also, there is metaethical bioethics, which seeks to understand the nature of ethics from a biological perspective. Bioethics even extends to something like social ethics (as your links point out!) and some make the case that human social interactions are best understood as evolutionary dispositions...so a deep understanding of evolved human interaction can be seen as necessary to doing good social bioethics.
Again, it seems as though you've been taught that bioethics is only a very narrow field. There is significant discussion that you must not have been exposed to regarding the scope of bioethics, and it isn't your fault that you weren't exposed, but please do understand that it exists. Don't just tell people that they have "no idea what they are talking about" when they don't agree with you about the scope of a problem/field. In the future, you might want to avoid the ambiguity and just call your view of the discipline "practical medical ethics" or "biomedical ethics," in which case I agree evolutionary theory won't enter the story too much, but I would still argue that it must be deeply understood.
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Don't listen to [TheVineyard]. He has no idea what bioethics is.
How well-reasoned. Did that make you feel better about yourself? It is amazing that they call me the negative one.
Bioethics covers a range of topics...one such is how the science of biology (and evolution) relates to or impacts practical ethics and metaethics, as I said.
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Weak! Tell us all.
Short story is that there are special circumstances that could (and probably will) lead me to turn it down.
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Yes, nietzschemarket is right that my interests are each independent of one another, though I see why TheVineyard identified phil bio as an outlier. The synthesis between my interests, if there is one, is how the study of evolution can impact philosophy and especially ethics. But I think it would fall short of the truth to just label that as bioethics, because a scientific analysis of evolution, which is central to my interests, seems very clearly to fall into philosophy of biology, if not purely biology.
This is still an eyebrow raiser to me. I don't think that finding out "how the study of evolution can impact philosophy and especially ethics" is separate from bioethics. Sounds like a classic case...maybe you mean something like naturalistic philosophy. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "a scientific analysis of evolution." Evolution is a scientific theory, I'm not sure how you scientifically analyze a scientific theory...if what you mean is continue the evolutionary research project by conducting empirical science, that would just be biology. Maybe you meant philosophical analysis of evolution?
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I thought you got into a top five?
Sent PM of situation.
Rejection thread
in Philosophy
Posted
To cheer ya'll up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSHNyppwS5w#t=30