Bumbling amature

[DR. JAMES ADAMS]

Dear listers,

             Well, I wasn't really going to participate in this 
thread, but Ryan Walters' and then Charles Gavette's messages 
back-to-back just made my fingers move to the keyboard.  There are 
numerous people in academia who welcome input from amateurs and are 
all to willing to help as much as time permits.  Doug Yanega 
certainly represents an excellent example of what I am talking about, 
and I certainly enjoy talking with the inexperienced amateur as well 
as the (supposedly) learned professional.  So you amateurs out there, 
even if you get the cold shoulder from some, don't stop asking.  
After all, we were *all amateurs* at one time, and the only way to 
become an academic is to learn more, presumably from other academics. 
Which is why Charles Gavette's post strikes me as being completely 
politically incorrect.  Apparently he has forgotten that he was not a 
learned fellow when he emerged from the womb.  Besides that, his 
message is so weirdly esoteric that, not only did I not agree with 
his message, I stopped reading it.  Oooo, an supposed academic such 
as myself not reading something and then responding to it?  How 
amateurish!!!

              James 

Dr. James K. Adams
Dept. of Natural Science and Math
Dalton State College
213 N. College Drive
Dalton, GA  30720
Phone: (706)272-4427; fax: (706)272-2533
U of Michigan's President James Angell's 
  Secret of Success: "Grow antennae, not horns"