Ph.D.

I don't happen to know how many Ph.D.s are actually living and working in the United States at the moment. But I read that American universities have turned out no fewer than 30,000 per year since the 1960s; in 2003, the latest year for which official statistics are available, there were 46,024 newly-minted eggheads.

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Once upon a time - in this particular case it was twenty years ago, plus or minus a few - a bright young fellow, we’ll call him Piet, set out to get his Ph.D. in phycology. More precisely, he took up the study of how algal cells divide, and what the differences that we find among the different algal species tells us of how all cells divide (information needed for, among other things, cancer research), as well as about the history of life on earth.

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ACADEMIC.

1. (n.) Person who teaches at an academy, where football is taught.

2. (adj.) The significance of what is taught at an academy, if it is not football.

3. (n.) Intellectually disabled person who spends great amounts of time and energy debating whether the pen is or is not mightier than the sword, failing to recognize that both are equally powerless when set against the onslaught of money. See Ph.D.*

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