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Middle of the show. The Welcome to the You are not so smart

Episode Episode 316

Episode 316. When Mary C. Murphy was in graduate school at Stanford, earning her degree in social psychology,

she attended one of these end-of-the-year review seminar things to support one of her friends.

It's one of these events where students earning their degrees will present their work so far to professors. And when Mary attended one of

these, she noticed something that seemed peculiar. This review ritual, this tradition, it's an event where students in different areas of study,

like cognitive psychology or neuroscience or in Mary C. Murphy's case, social psychology,

gather by area of research and present their work on their dissertations.

It's kind of like a science fair, but also kind of like a

TED talk, lots of slides, lots of diagrams and graphs and things, except the professors ask

questions and make remarks and then convene to make more remarks among themselves, and then

offer revisions, major and minor to the work.

And it's a big deal for people in grad school trying to earn their PhDs.

And the stakes are very high, and so are the stress levels among the students.

And, you know, every psychology seminar has their own presentation

schedule. And I was in one visiting a friend who was giving his talk at the end of his fourth year

in the PhD program. And he's up there and all of a sudden he's interrupted by a faculty member

sitting over on the right. And the faculty member

just doesn't even raise his hand, of course, just yells out, well, it's clear the fatal flaw is

...