Holt graduated with a B.A. degree in physics from Carleton College in Minnesota, and holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from New York University. The title of his doctoral dissertation is “Calcium absorption lines and solar activity: a systematic program of observations” and is available from University Microfilms International as document number 8127915.
Holt served as a faculty member at Swarthmore College from 1980 to 1988 where he taught physics, public policy, and religion courses. During that time, he also worked as a Congressional Science Fellow for U.S. Representative Bob Edgar of Pennsylvania. From 1987 until 1989, Holt headed the Nuclear and Scientific Division of the Office of Strategic Forces at the U.S. Department of State.
From 1989 until his successful congressional campaign in 1998, Holt was the Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory at Princeton University, the University’s largest research facility and the largest center for energy research in New Jersey.
That's one of the truly amazing things about the anthrax case. There are people with Ph.D's and all kinds of fancy degrees who have the STUPIDEST beliefs imaginable.
The debates about the anthrax case aren't typically debates between people with advanced degrees and people with only high-school diplomas. The main debates are between people with Ph.D's. They are debates between Ph.D's who argue BELIEFS and Ph.D's who argue FACTS. That's what has kept me interested for nine years.
The fact that someone has advanced degrees means nothing when someone else with advanced degrees says just the opposite. That's when YOU need to look at the facts. That's when I look at the facts.
As it says in my book, some of the DUMBEST people I've ever encountered in my life have Ph.D's.