How God Helped Ben Carson Cheat on a Chemistry Exam

[Warren Stupidity]

Ben Carson spoke at a National Day of Prayer event and told a bizarre story about how God helped him cheat on a chemistry exam so he could pass a class he was failing by sending him the answers in a dream. Absolutely nothing about this story sounds even remotely plausible.

As Carson explained it, his goal of becoming a doctor was nearly derailed in his first semester at Yale University when he was failing his chemistry class to such an extent that he would not have been able to pass even if managed to get an A on the final exam. Fortunately for him, this particular professor had a policy that anyone who was failing the class could receive double credit on the final and so Carson asked God for a miracle before committing himself to study for the exam the night before.

But instead of studying, Carson fell asleep and had a dream in which he was alone in an auditorium as some “nebulous figure” wrote out chemistry problems on the blackboard.

“When I went to take the test the next morning, it was like ‘The Twilight Zone,'” Carson said. “I opened that book and I recognized the first problem as one of the ones I dreamed about. And the next, and the next, and the next, and I aced the exam and got a good mark in chemistry. It worked out okay and I promised the Lord he would never have to do that for me again.”

I hope someone looks up his old chemistry professor, if they’re still alive, or some of his other classmates. The idea that a Yale Med School professor had a policy where someone failing his course could get double credit on his exam so they could pass seems incredibly unlikely. The whole story sounds like total bullshit.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2015/05/09/how-god-helped-ben-carson-cheat-on-a-chemistry-exam/

[hrmjustin]

1. That was nice of the Almighty.

[leftofcool]

3. I'll say!

[hrmjustin]

5. i am a devout Christian and I think I deser e tonight's lottery numbers.

[leftofcool]

2. I had a dream while in college that I failed my physics exam. I did.

So I dropped the class and took "physics for poets." It was a miracle I passed that one.

[hrmjustin]

4. great to see you in here my friend.

[Historic NY]

6. So he violated a commandment....

Exodus 20:15

You shall not steal.


Lets boil him...soon.

[immoderate]

7. Story doesn't ring true.

I do not believe a Yale professor had a policy "that anyone who was failing the class could receive double credit on the final." This would disadvantage students who are passing. They might benefit from double credit on the final.

--imm

[Warren Stupidity]

8. The author makes that point.

So here we have what is probably an outright lie about the policy coupled with an assertion that "god" intervened on his behalf. Carson is simply a fabulist, a self serving liar. And yet he has been described as a hero right here.

[immoderate]

11. Extreme example of the 'horizontal Peter Principle.'

Peter posed that people advance in their profession until they reach their 'level of incompetence.' But suppose, like Carson, someone scales the heights of their profession, and is totally successful? Then they will seek out new professions until they settle into one where they can achieve incompetence. Welcome to politics, Ben.

As a surgeon, Carson's wackiness was not an issue. As a civic leader, wow!

--imm

[thecrow]

14. Plus, he has the arrogance

to dismiss god afterwards. As in, well god, you gave me exactly what I wanted, so you won't have to do that again.
These people and their ilk irq me to no end.

[okasha]

9. Ooooh!

Guess what Warren's new favoritest intertubes site is!

And now my fee-fees is hurt because I had to pass chem and physics all by myself!

[hrmjustin]

10. Free thoughts are free.

Just an fyi.

[skepticscott]

16. Do you have anything but snark to contribute, okasha?

Do you have the courage to stand up and call a liar a liar? Or would you rather defend a rabidly homophobic Republican bigot while attacking another DUer?

[mr blur]

17. Jaws clench tighter and a thick vein throbs to prominence at her temple.

"The world had intruded on them too soon, too insistently."

[rug]

12. Analysis:

http://wordpress.mrreid.org/2013/08/20/the-equation-for-the-perfect-equation/

[3catwoman3]

13. What a load of...

...BS. In the link, Carson is quoted as saying the experience was like something out of The Twilight Zone. Indeed - fiction.

[bvf]

15. Total bullshit sounds about right.

I'm sure his audience ate it up like candy.

[edhopper]

18. If this were true

isn't it cheating. God giving him the answers he doesn't know should be the same as another student giving him the answers, or him seeing the test in advance.

If he clearly did not understand the class, and only passed because God told him the answers, why would he deserve to pass?

Did he also have a dream of a snake eating it's tail?