# Something I've noticed about Ben Carson **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 3, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549 "2015-11-03T19:14:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![bethewave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@bethewave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bethewave)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/101 "2015-11-08T15:03:20Z")
> [@bethewave](#): > > Oh, first off they’ll say he changed the name of the class in his book just like he changed the name of the friend he nearly stabbed, and that YOU probably don’t remember the name of every class you took in uni, and that maybe the paper didn’t run the story, and that this is a witch hunt by the liberal media, aaaaand eventually “You guys never asked Obama all these questions, you’re not asking the other guys these questions”. > [@adaher](#): > > This is clearly a case of “he who is without sin cast the first stone”. How many of you can be sure that all your stories about your youth are 100% accurate? It seems a very strange thing for the media to investigate. They can knock themselves out if they want to, it comes with the territory of running for President, but this is just weird. We were told that investigation Bill Clinton or Barack Obama’s childhood was out of bounds. Yayyyyy what do I win? ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/102 "2015-11-08T15:47:54Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > Really, I think it’s pretty damaging that his tale of how much more honest he is than everyone else turns out to be completely made up. And there is the crux. Look, I don’t really care about Carson’s lies about his childhood; it’s the Republicanesque hypocrisy that is the problem his apologists don’t seem to understand. Carson’s whole schtick is that he is an honest person. Everybody lies. Carson lied. Not really such a big deal except that without his self-defining honesty the only thing to laud about him is his skill as a medical technician, because he certainly isn’t knowledgeable about much else. Carson is no different than the countless family values Republicans who cheat on their spouses, or the many rabidly anti-Gay Republicans who are caught engaging in homosexuality. It’s the hypocrisy, stupid. The above stated, I am much more concerned with Carson’s wackadoodle beliefs than his lies. For the life of me, I cannot understand how Carson successfully navigated medical school with YEC views that are incongruent with how the world, including biology, actually works, unless he came to his current beliefs sometime after achieving his degrees. The pyramids story actually scares me because even if he really believes it, he should be intelligent and circumspect enough to know to keep it under his hat, but he is not. Not only does this show a person who is not very smart or self-aware, but someone who believes what he is told without question if it comports with dogma he has chosen to embrace, which is as lazy as it is unscientific. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/103 "2015-11-08T15:50:02Z")
I don’t think Ben Carson was born a US citizen. I’ve never seen his birth certificate. I don’t think he’s a Christian either, he looks like a Muslim. The phony stories he planted are just to distract people from his lack of eligibility to be president and his plan to enact Sharia law once he’s elected. He’s also Hitler and Stalin. Let’s impeach him. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/104 "2015-11-08T19:24:33Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > I can’t wait to hear what his campaign says. They could say something about he changed the class name or year, and he actually took a psychology class called something else. But I don’t know how they’ll explain the absence of the supposed photo of him being the “most honest student.” [Carson somewhat addressed it on “This Week” on ABC this morning](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-donald-trump-ben-carson/story?id=35044135): > [@](#): > > STEPHANOPOULOS: – Dr. Carson, explain that, because “The Wall Street Journal” did say that there was class where you were named the most honest student, but they couldn’t find the name of the class or at – any record of it at Yale. > > What exactly have you found? > > CARSON: We found the article from the “Yale Daily News” about the whole scam, so – it wasn’t a scam, it was a parody. And – but we found it. And the course, I guess, was called Psychology 1-0. > > You know, when you write a book with a co-writer and you say that there was a class, a lot of times they’ll put a number or something on it just to give it more meat. You know, obviously, decades later, I’m not going to remember the course number. I’m not quite sure what he means, is he saying there was an article about him being the most honest, but it was a parody article? And just the reporters haven’t seen the parody article yet? I don’t know if that’s right or not about co-writers just making up names and course numbers for classes, but regardless that’s not a big deal. But what he said happened in the class is baffling to me. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/105 "2015-11-08T19:34:32Z")
Ben Carson as POTUS: “I didn’t say we should bomb Israel, I was kidding. That was a parody. The DoD just didn’t see it yet.” :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/106 "2015-11-08T19:53:01Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Good luck proving any of it’s false, something which the media has thus far completely failed to do. “We cannot corroborate an event that happened on a street corner in the 1960s” is not the same as “he made it up.” You are about a week behind. The media can’t corroborate the stories about his mad slasher days, nor can they prove them false; that much of your claim is accurate. But they HAVE proved that the West Point and Yale stories are false. West Point did not offer him a scholarship, and Yale does not have a Perceptions 301 course. There is **no question** about that. There _is_ a question about whether he made them up, or simply misremembered. It’s plausible that he misremembered in the West Point case, although it’s strange that he never realized he must have been mistaken at any time in the several decades between the time of the incident and now. It is not possible that the Yale story was an honest mistake. The story is ridiculous in almost every detail, and it was clearly fabricated, ironically, to show how honest he is — although I can’t think of anyone I know, including myself, who would have behaved as his 150 weasel classmates allegedly did. You continue to post as if the Yale story didn’t exist. It does, and it’s been proven false. He can’t even claim to have disguised the name of the course to protect his classmates, because he just spent a morning railing against Obama for not releasing his college transcripts, so unless he’s an even bigger idiot than I thought, he has to release his own transcripts, and we’ll be able to see the actual name of this mythical course, and ask Yale if it really does allow profs to fuck with students like that during Finals Week, or if it really did have a way for the prof to contact 150 students to arrange for a retest two days after the first test, before there were cell phones or emails. Maybe the prof himself is still around to tell us. I think we both know what the outcome of those inquiries will be. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/107 "2015-11-08T20:46:48Z")
The saga continues… Carson has demanded an apology from the WSJ for saying that the course Carson named in his book, Perceptions 301, was not offered at Yale when Carson attended. Carson [reportedly](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ben-carson-provides-new-documents-in-yale-class-case/article/2575902) posted a link to the Yale syllabus, and said, “Allow me also to do the research for the Wall Street Journal reporter. Here is a syllabus for the class you claim never existed. Still waiting on the apology.” Here’s the link to the [syllabus](http://www.yale.edu/perception/Brian/courses/Perception-Syllabus.html). It completely vindicates Carson. Well, except that the name of the course is Psych 323, not Perceptions 301. And the date of the course is 2002, not the early 70’s. The professor received his PhD in 1999, so he was probably not born when Carson was at Yale. And as I speculated in an earlier post in one of these threads, as a 300-level course, it has a very limited enrollment (Carson claimed his had 150 students). To be specific, each student is required to give a presentation of 10 to 15 minutes. Only two class days are allotted for this, a total of 2.5 hours. So if each student took the minimum 10 minutes, and each began speaking the instant the previous one finished, there would be time for 15 students. Given the time it would take for one student to follow another, and the prof’s comments before, during, and after the presentations, an enrollment of 10 seems more feasible. He also [posted](https://www.facebook.com/realbencarson/photos/a.143829065783568.1073741825.138691142964027/551604265006044/?type=3&hc_location=ufi) an undated story about a hoax psychology retest at Yale. It doesn’t have a single detail that matches Carson’s story, but he again claims that he deserves an apology. So it appears that he didn’t make the story up out of thin air; he saw that article, and concocted a version where he would be the star of the story. He’s plagiarizing his lies. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/108 "2015-11-08T20:51:19Z")
Wait, he presented, as evidence of this happening, a news article with “Parody” written right above the headline and underlined? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/109 "2015-11-08T20:51:30Z")
We do not have to wait for the outcome of the inquiries **TonySinclair** , the Carson people released the evidence that shows that Carson took a parody article from a Yale newspaper and absorbed it as his own history. As per the interview **Sam Lowry** linked to, it is clear that Carson is tossing the co-writer of his biography under the bus. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/110 "2015-11-08T20:53:50Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > The above stated, I am much more concerned with Carson’s wackadoodle beliefs than his lies. For the life of me, I cannot understand how Carson successfully navigated medical school with YEC views that are incongruent with how the world, including biology, actually works, unless he came to his current beliefs sometime after achieving his degrees. The pyramids story actually scares me because even if he really believes it, he should be intelligent and circumspect enough to know to keep it under his hat, but he is not. Not only does this show a person who is not very smart or self-aware, but someone who believes what he is told without question if it comports with dogma he has chosen to embrace, which is as lazy as it is unscientific. If Carson is a flim flam artist, his wackadoodle beliefs exist comfortably with his narrow technical skills. Carson is a specialist surgeon and a generalist crank. Seriously: the two can co-exist. I doubt whether he is really running for office, so I’m not especially scared of him. This lack of fear is based upon the hypothesis that you need a good ground game to secure the nomination. More generally, politicians need at least lukewarm support from 51%. But capitalists can get very rich on 20%, 10% or even 0.1% of the market. So while Trump and Carson might be able to secure a few delegates, I doubt whether they will win the prize. **Crazytown** Of course I could be wrong. If my hypothesis is wrong -if Trump and Carson have a chance- it is scary. As it is, 60-65% of the Republican electorate appear to be comfortable handing the reigns of power to patently unqualified candidates, passing over qualified ones on their side. All of the tax programs are heavily tilted to the wealthy and bust the budget. Some, such as Rubio’s, are misrepresented. These sorts of judgments are questionable: this goes beyond values, never mind being nice or mean. Complication: **RTFirefly** noted that most aren’t really focused on the election now. Maybe. But I’ll note that Iowa Republicans have similar support levels for the various candidate groupings. But maybe they aren’t focused either. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/111 "2015-11-08T21:02:07Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > The above stated, I am much more concerned with Carson’s wackadoodle beliefs than his lies. For the life of me, I cannot understand how Carson successfully navigated medical school with YEC views that are incongruent with how the world, including biology, actually works, unless he came to his current beliefs sometime after achieving his degrees. IMHO this is a case were the corporate media has an opening to get Carson on his clear condition as a Crank Magnet, this is because the corporate media have other candidates to [del]fleece[/del] support. Of course both the mainline conservative and the liberal elements of the media would love to press a lot on the wackaddodle ideas of Carson, but unfortunately a lot of viewers, readers and advertisers have similar ideas like Carson in America nowadays; so this line of criticism that does not deal will religion will do. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/112 "2015-11-08T21:31:16Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > Wait, he presented, as evidence of this happening, a news article with “Parody” written right above the headline and underlined? If I’m reading it right, here’s what the article is saying: [ul] [li]It says “Parody” at the top, but it doesn’t read like a parody, since it’s talking about another parody issue. If it was an actual parody article, it would be extremely meta. I’m guessing it’s labeled “Parody” at the top because it’s discussing a parody paper, or because that’s the section of the paper that usually the humor column goes in, or something like that.[/li][li]It mentions that the day before, the Yale Record presented a parody issue for the Yale Daily News.[/li][li]This parody issue announced that a series of Psychology 10 exams were destroyed and a makeup would be held that night.[/li][li]So, apparently students read the parody issue, didn’t realize that it was a parody issue, and went to go attend the makeup exam.[/li][li]A false exam was held that night and attended by several students not aware that the replacement exam was a hoax. The exams distributed to the group resembled the original exams. [/li][li]The article doesn’t mention if the tests were harder, or what was on them, or what the results were, or what the students did, or anything after that. [/li][/ul] So it’s similar to his original story, but nothing about fire, or the whole class being there, or everyone leaving except for one honest student. Some of his other stories are close enough to be honest mistakes, or mild exaggeration, but this still sounds like someone wildly making up things. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/113 "2015-11-08T21:36:38Z")
It’s funny reading the internet’s reactions not just to GOP candidates, but to what Americans believe in general. [Maybe there will be a realization that democracy is silly.](http://www.sinkers.org/posters/whatdemocracylookslike/whatdemocracylookslike.jpg) > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > All of the tax programs are heavily tilted to the wealthy and bust the budget. Some, such as Rubio’s, are misrepresented. These sorts of judgments are questionable: this goes beyond values, never mind being nice or mean. It’s just classic starve the beast stuff. Oh no, we don’t have enough revenue. Guess we have to slash spending, it’s be irresponsible not to! ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/114 "2015-11-08T21:44:51Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > So it’s similar to his original story, but nothing about fire, or the whole class being there, or everyone leaving except for one honest student. Some of his other stories are close enough to be honest mistakes, or mild exaggeration, but this still sounds like someone wildly making up things. The whole point of Carson’s story was that the professor arranged the fake test, and congratulated Carson for his honesty. There was no hint that the professor even knew about the fake exam in the article Carson is now claiming vindicates him. But get a load of the comments on Carson’s facebook page. His fans are as delusional as he is. > **[Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/realbencarson/photos/a.143829065783568.1073741825.138691142964027/551604265006044/?type=3&hc_location=ufi)** > > On Saturday a reporter with the Wall Street Journal published a story that my account of being the victim of a hoax at Yale where students were led to... ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/115 "2015-11-08T22:07:16Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > The whole point of Carson’s story was that the professor arranged the fake test, and congratulated Carson for his honesty. There was no hint that the professor even knew about the fake exam in the article Carson is now claiming vindicates him. Yeah, it’s pretty clear he was the victim of an Animal House-style prank. The Yale humor magazine prints up a parody issue of the student paper. It includes a story about exam papers being destroyed and a make-up exam being scheduled for later that evening. The pranksters then go camp out in an empty classroom to “administer” the “exam” to anyone gullible enough to show up. I completely believe that the person running the fake exam shook Ben Carson’s hand after he was done: “Congratualtions, Mr. Carson. Why you’re just the sort of fine, upstanding young man we’re proud to have here at Yale. Do you mind if we take your photo for the paper?” And as soon as he was out the door they all laughed their heads off at what a tool he was. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/116 "2015-11-08T22:15:07Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Yeah, it’s pretty clear he was the victim of an Animal House-style prank. > > The Yale humor magazine prints up a parody issue of the student paper. It includes a story about exam papers being destroyed and a make-up exam being scheduled for later that evening. The pranksters then go camp out in an empty classroom to “administer” the “exam” to anyone gullible enough to show up. > > I completely believe that the person running the fake exam shook Ben Carson’s hand after he was done: “Congratualtions, Mr. Carson. Why you’re just the sort of fine, upstanding young man we’re proud to have here at Yale. Do you mind if we take your photo for the paper?” And as soon as he was out the door they all laughed their heads off at what a tool he was. This is the best and most believable version of any Ben Carson story yet. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/117 "2015-11-08T22:17:54Z")
But I’m sure that they _didn’t_ hand him a ten-dollar bill so he could take a bus to church, which (in Carson’s telling) was the whole reason for the story. And seriously, if that was the actual incident, and his memory of it was as described in his book, then he’s mentally incompetent. Nobody remembers anything perfectly, but everyone should remember better than that. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/118 "2015-11-08T22:30:10Z")
Yes, it is _possible_ that Carson was enough of a Nimrod to have read a parody article about a make up test and with a small handful of other Nimrods showed up and taken a fake test, much to the amusement of the pranksters. And that his delusional memory honestly misrecollects 150 other students showing up, leaving, and the actual professor being there, his photo being taken, and him being given a ten spot by the teacher that God knew he needed to have. Or that he read the parody and delusionally remembers that he was among those who showed up when he never did. Or he’s simply a very poor serial pathological liar. Not sure which is the best option. Maybe he’s a plant to make Trump look rational and honest in comparison? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/119 "2015-11-08T22:31:13Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > This is the best and most believable version of any Ben Carson story yet. 😛 I can imagine it now: Westmoreland and the ROTC bigs shake hands with Carson, notice how he does think. Give him a tall tale so he will finally go away. Westmoreland and the ROTC guys roll on the floor laughing out loud. … Later, Yale pranksters shake hands with Carson and give him a tall tale. They ROTFLOL … Years later Ryan Rhodes, founder and co-chair of the Iowa Tea Party and staff for Carson and others approach Carson and tell him that he would be a great candidate. After Carson accepts and he leaves the room, Rhodes and the others all ROTFLOL. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549/120 "2015-11-08T22:43:08Z")
> [@Sam\_Lowry](#): > > So it’s similar to his original story, but nothing about fire, or the whole class being there, or everyone leaving except for one honest student. Some of his other stories are close enough to be honest mistakes, or mild exaggeration, but this still sounds like someone wildly making up things. And if this story is wildly made up, and the other stories are very questionable, it sure makes it much more likely in my mind that the other stores are wildly made up as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/something-ive-noticed-about-ben-carson/736549.md?page=7)