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Re: grade inflation, etc.

Obviously I need to recheck what I remember of Darwin. Meantime, would you
provide other examples of my hyperbole?

What you tell me about your "top physicists" leads me to suspect that
they can't express themselves in writing. Physics is a form of
communication, and the ability to express one's self in writing is an
vital part of being a "top physicist".

Some of them can't; some write very well; most I don't really know about,
because they didn't turn in enough written work for me to find out.

Can you justify your statement that "physics is a form of communication?"
Certainly most of us find that it involves communication, but that's a long
way from being a form of communication.


The grades that you give your students should ultimately represent
you warranty as to their ability to "perform physics". If this is
not the case, then it is unlikely that I would want to hire any of
your graduates to work in a physics/engineering environment, or
recommend them for admission to my alma mater. That's because there
are many students whose high grades are meaningful predictors of
their future performance.

If I must assign grades (and I must), I agree that ability to perform
physics should be the prime criterion. This should be the basis of the
grades. Can you define "ability to perform physics" in a measurable way
that can reliably translate into a grade?

Suppose I have two students who work together in a lab. One student
understands the purpose of the lab better, figures out what equipment to
use and how to set up the lab in order to give good results, analyzes the
first set of data, and on the basis of the results proposes a second
experiment to investigate a trend in the data. The other student
contributes to the lab, but clearly doesn't have the understanding of the
physics that the first student does. The first student doesn't turn in a
lab report; the second one does. Which one has better ability to "perform
physics?"