Physicists can be some of the most interesting characters you’ll ever meet, with restless curiosity about the world even beyond the confines of their subject. I admire that willingness to take the blinders off and examine the facts, rather than being hamstrung by preconceived notions. A physics education can help teach a person to question assumptions, and the analytical mindset that I gained from the years I spent in physics has helped me to see the world in a far different way from how I might have seen it if I hadn’t had that education. I do treasure having this extra way of seeing the world, even if I left physics behind.

But the problem is, the qualities of open-mindedness and questioning of assumptions in the laboratory can coexist with a huge blind spot: the belief that physics is a meritocracy. (You may substitute any science, or really just about any endeavor really, for “physics” here.) Astronomer Rob Knop posted about this myth on his blog Galactic Interactions after getting copies of these marked-up pages which are from the letters section of the December 2006 issue of the physics trade magazine Physics Today. (more…)