It would be foolish to base an admissions decision on any one professor, although you should choose your advisor very carefully–and a reputation for racism or sexism is a red flag.

I should have answered you earlier concerning the terms “inexperienced” and “racist”.

We are all bigots. None of us has been perfectly cleaned of our bigotries to be able to point a finger elsewhere and call someone else “racist” or “sexist” or “classist” when we are all suffering from it. To use the term “racist” is to assume some purity exists by the person pointing the finger.

It further falsely implies that when certain rhetoric disappears and all access is open then racism has died…Today’s gang bangers take advantage of that every day. They hurl racial, sexual, and class insults at each other every day on school buses and then hang around each other at night. They find fighting and beating each other up as a way of expressing affection. I busdrive them to school every day. This gives me an experience that others do not have, but does not make me clean of all my prejudices..It merely brings out others I didn’t know I had to the surface.

“Inexperience” implies that, like a trade, a long journey is ahead and this term is more fitting with science. The term “racist” is more fitting to the smacks of religion…the concept of good and evil…the false world of halos and horns..

Sorry — hit submit by accident.

I wanted to add my 2c worth that Lubos’s opinions and demeanour are not representative of the wider Harvard faculty in physics (indeed, of the people I know there, I suspect they would all be vehemently opposed to them) and I would not let the presence of a single assistant professor significantly sway your decisiont to attend a given graduate school (in either direction).

The best way to get a feeling for a department that has offered you a place in its graduate program is to visit it in person, and talk to other graduate students. If they seem miserable (for whatever reason), then *that* is a red flag.

Not just because it has nothing to do with the rest of the department, but, being an assistant prof, he will not necessarily be there for the duration of your grad school career…

I probably am not in the best position to advise you on graduate school but I would suggest that you should not let Lubos affect your decision about Harvard. I hope some of the other folks here who are closer to the academic community will speak up and echo the sentiment that he is a sample space of one and not a representative of the environment at that university. Best of luck with your decision.

Elliot

P. S.

Running a blog and making obnoxious, arrogant and demeaning comments requires no special academic qualification or talent. It can be done with very little technical knowledge in oh … about 30 minutes.

Can someone tell me whether this is common in Cambridge? Because if so, I’ll stay away….