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Re: Pedagogy



Larry wrote in part:


|
| Physicists are some of the smartest people in the world
| because they are the only people who can survive current
| physics education. Is physics so intrinsically hard that we
| can't make physicists out of capable, interested, and
| motivated merely-above-average people? Is it truly so hard
| that we want an elite club of only the smartest people in the
| world?


While I generally agreed with most of the sentiment of the cut pieces, but
don't feel too critical of the post that instigated the response either.
However,

|Wouldn't we rather have _more_ physicists, even if we
| had to take them from the 80th percentile or the 70th?

I'm not sure the answer is *yes* to this question. The world, as evidenced
by the job market, appears to *not* need larger production of physicists.
While I can only speak to my own experience, but I haven't been inundated
with head-hunters for many years.


| (In most circles I'm considered reasonably intelligent, but on
| this list I'm pretty much at the bottom.)

Joel R.