Whether it sits right with you or not, it is true. Not everybody has
the same intellectual ability, the same as we are not all able to be
Olympic athletes no matter how hard we work. Otherwise, universities
would not require high scores on entrance exams for undergraduate study,
and we would not require our applicants to our PhD programs to perform
well on GREs. This is not elitism, it is just a consequence of genetic
variation in human populations.
Andrew D. Bailey wrote:
Mitch, your opening paragraph and premise just doesn't site right with
me. From my observations of the folks I've seen get PhDs, I have a
hard time accepting that a PhD is "something that the majority of the
population is not capable of achieving" due to any inherent
"intellectual prowess"- that statement absolutely smacks of the
elitism that gives academics a bad name. It comes off as putting
yourself on some pedestal of intelligence due to a piece of paper you
received.
A PhD is definitely something that the majority of the population does
not aspire to achieve. PhD programs obviously attract some of the
best and brightest since they are the capstone degrees in most fields-
but plenty of average folks receive PhDs too. I have seen very few
cases where a PhD is denied to a candidate due to intellectual
inferiority. I would suggest that the most important ingredient in
achieving a PhD is determination, not inherent intelligence.
Andrew Bailey
Mitch Cruzan wrote:
There is a deeper issue here- A PhD is not just something you get, or
that anybody can just get. The ability to earn a PhD in any
discipline is something that the majority of the population is not
capable of achieving. It's not just about hard work- A PhD is earned
through the demonstration of intellectual prowess, or more
specifically the ability to assimilate and explicate information from
the breadth of a field of study.
--
Mitchell B. Cruzan, Associate Professor
Department of Biology
P.O. Box 751
Portland State University
Portland, OR 97207
http://web.pdx.edu/~cruzan/
