humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On 8 Apr, 02:28, Potroast wrote:
>    Just something I'd like to add for those that doubt the
> astronomical importance and intelligence of modern physicists.
> (something very under appreciated by most I think)   Consider
> England's Tim Berners Lee. He created the WWW as a pet project....
> whereas corporations that specialize in I/T with multi-billion dollar
> R&D budgets didn't think of it.
>
>   Very few people are capable of getting PhD's in physics because of
> the sheer difficulty of the subject material...

Sorry, but that's just not true in my experience.
I am still on good terms with half a dozen or so
former classmates who have since completed
or are on the verge of completing PhDs. The
major difficulties they have faced have been,
without exception, practical: getting the damned
equipment to work, learning how to use new
software etc. That chimes with my own experience
in my final year project -- the theory was child's
play in comparison to getting hold of the data in
a usable format. Only one of the proto-physics PhDs
I know could be described as unusually
bright, and even in his case it's in a very narrow
way. Some intelligence is required, but as an
essential characteristic it ranks way behind
(1) patience, (2) willingness to forgo
greater financial rewards elsewhere and (3)
willingness to work with people who usually
feature somewhere on the autistic spectrum.

The best physicists are brilliant, obviously,
but then so are the best in many other fields.