Don’t scorn the riff-raff:
The president of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular(MSBMB) Biology, Steven McKnight is said (“Riff-Raff Charge Draws Ire NATURE vol. 514 no. 7521 October 9, 2014 page 143) to have said that the research world has been infiltrated by, what he referred to as, riff-raff. “The average scientist today is not of the quality of our predecessors.”
So he noticed. I trust you know what that means. It means the gifted people at least in his field already did not have the children that would give the field the depth it needs. I had already noticed that in politics; when I speak of it I draw down fire, but what I heard was that on the Supreme Court there is not a single man who is not a member of a minority group; they are the best of the best and most people seem furious with them. All right, it’s outside my field. I can’t really substantiate it, but it should be easy enough to find out. Then the best choice America could find for a president was Obama, his father wasn’t even an immigrant, but he was the best we had. (Maybe you’d like to join the people who’ve screamed at me over that one as well.) And the legislature seems to have forgotten how to make the political machine work. I don’t get as much flack on that one. In other words the gifted politicians haven’t had the babies either.
It had to happen. I’m amazed it seems to be happening so soon.
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