Originally Posted by
late developer
I think the truth is, the successful 'doers' in any business no longer try to really understand raw theory or need to. Instead they become adept at following patterns that lead to the usual answers down a well trod path to common profit-making scenarios. Much of it is 'quick and dirty' too.
If that is why people are successful, then bleating that higher academics are required is a somewhat false argument. It is an age-old moan of highly-intelligent people that those of lesser intelligence are unfairly more successful, but this reflects the reality that success requires other soft skills such as management, leadership, practicality etc that pure academics do not give.
I realise that is an aside from the thread, but that translates back to the flight deck through having people with management skills and flying skills, but who do not require some areas of deep technical knowledge of the engineering, which help nobody, even in a dire emergency.
Going back to the academics - consider the school and university jocks, who passed, but were not intelligent. Looking ahead, some of those become highly-successful (others are of course not), while intelligent students are also split between those who are successful or not. Successful people realise that they do not need to know all the detail - they organise those who do, and reap the rewards of a successful delivery to market.
Some intelligent people on the other hand never discover those other skills - for example those who never go beyond the lowly-paid research lab roles etc.
In relation to this thread, it is bogus to suggest allowing only the best candidates to succeed is racist. Any other policy is potentially dangerous in this environment. While racist white minority rule produced the current SAA demographics, the way to fix it is to ensure that all apply and choose the best candidates regardless of colour. If the demographic endures, it is not racist to suggest that safety should not be compromised through recruitment policies.
It is however racist to deny the education to all that will allow them to put themselves in a position to apply, should they wish to do so.