Funny thing about that is I believe Noah Keller was pre-Med.  And didn't he have a little incident with a baseball field and an all wheel drive vehicle?  On occasion, I fear boys will be boys regardless of aptitude.

And LC's claim was prompted by your labeling football players as "idiots." He was simply pointing out the the majority of players are not idiots.

Sorry PG, just trying to make a little levity with my post.

Since when is Healthcare Administration a jock major? Seems like a reasonably challenging business-related discipline. Also, lots of job opportunities in the healthcare field today.

Until my early 30s, I likely wouldn't have questioned assertions that certain academic majors - architecture, pre-med, electrical engineering, physics, etc - were more demanding than many others.

But something that began happening in my early 30s did cause me to begin re-thinking what constitutes a "more rigorous" major.  At that time I was the holder of degrees in journalism and law.  Those majors included some tough courses but nothing that seemed to me terribly intellectually daunting.

At 33 I was recruited by TRW (a maker of spacecraft, battlefield communications systems and other high-tech products) as a manager. There were three levels above me in corporate communications. The CEO was a rocket scientist.  The co-founder and then a vice chairman was another rocket scientist who had been one of Howard Hughes' young technology titans, then left to co-found a company and who once had been on the cover of TIME. 

Not long after I was there, the CEO phoned me one day to ask my thinking on something.  My first thought was: Why me?  Three more senior guys were available.  Soon afterward he phoned again.  I enjoyed my interactions with the CEO who, as a young man, had figured out trajectory problems on early ICBMs. 

One day I asked my boss' boss why the CEO kept asking me for thinking when the more senior guys were available.  "Oh," came the casual reply, "he likes to call whoever he thinks is best equipped to help."

On the most sensitive corporate situations, he kept phoning and we kept meeting.  I helped him map out strategies, articulate them and often take the lead in implementing. 

It finally dawned on me - you might call me a slow-learner - that he valued the combination of my analytical ability,  willingness to step into delicate situations and deal with them with a measure of intestinal fortitude. 

Shortly after the CEO started seeking my counsel so did the rocket scientist vice chair.  Once he phoned and said, "Mike, I need to go to Washington to testify before a congressional committee.  I'd like you to go with me." 

That led to numerous interactions, including developing a technology symposium. 

Me? The journalism and law guy working on a level playing field with rocket scientists?  As a kid who woulda thunk it?

All of the above started me on the way to a conclusion.  Often - not always, concededly - it's not so much IQ that translates into success as it is apptitude.  And if IQs are similar then apptitude figures even more prominently in success. 

So when someone demeans a particular major or academic discipline, I find myself wondering to what extent the critic would succeed in any major where, IQ aside, he/she has little apptitude. 

Hope he gets his act together and head on straight and not wind up as dust in the wind.