All About Radiation - Hubbard's Qualifications

Hubbard's Qualifications

Despite calling himself a nuclear physicist (some editions of the book even call him "one of America's first nuclear physicists" on the dustjacket), Hubbard was in no way a qualified physicist, nuclear or otherwise. His only degree was from Sequoia University, an unaccredited diploma mill. The only course in nuclear physics Hubbard ever took was in 1931 at George Washington University, whose records indicate that he scored an F in the course. Hubbard dropped out of school shortly thereafter, with a 2.28 grade point average.

Hubbard referred to himself as a nuclear physicist on many occasions in the 1950s, such as in the tape-recorded 1956 lecture A Postulate Out Of A Golden Age, where he not only claimed to be a nuclear physicist, but that he was offered (and turned down) a U.S. Government post as one. This comment has been edited out of the CD version of the lecture currently offered by the L. Ron Hubbard Classic Lectures series.

In February 1966, Hubbard defended his mail-order degree: "I was a Ph.D., Sequoia's University and therefore a perfectly valid doctor under the laws of the State of California". But only a month later, he announced: "having reviewed the damage being done in our society with nuclear physics and psychiatry by persons calling themselves "Doctor" do hereby resign in protest my university degree as a Doctor of philosophy (Ph. D.)"