When I was at my old physics lab I did a back of the envelope calculation for how much I was getting paid an hour given the work they expected me to do.
It was less than I would have made flipping burgers.
That was the end of my scientific career.
>I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs.
Who said people shouldn't be judged on merit? The point being made in the article is not that it's literally better to not be too bright, but that being intellectually capable of working on something than the Grand Unified Theory of Everything (or The Cure to Cancer or The Riemann Hypothesis or whatever the equivalent is in each field) is necessary if you want to have a good career in science.
Ultimately, the chances that a scientist at the beginning of their career will be able to make a significant contribution to such a big project that so many intelligent people have spent so many decades (centuries in the case of some mathematical problems) trying to solve. It's not a good career decision (or a good life decision) for a young mathematician to spend the crucial early years of their career trying to solve the Riemann hypothesis. 9999 times out of 10000 they'll fail to make any significant contribution to the problem, because they're not ready to yet, and then will struggle to build a career when they've just wasted years of their life, publishing nothing, contributing nothing, learning nothing.
Maybe you're a true genius and make headway on one of the grandest and most fundamental of problems. But most people, even most young academics, are not geniuses. They would be far better served working on smaller, more realistically achievable goals.
The point of the quote (that it is best to be "not too bright") is that there seems to be a gap between people that are "normal" enough that they're intellectually capable of working on something small and people that are "genius" enough to be intellectually capable of actually making progress on something huge. Between that you get people that are "too bright" to work on small problems but not actually smart enough (or lucky enough in their choice of approach or whatever other reason) to solve the Riemann hypothesis or P=NP or Quantum Gravity or whatever.
If you're a genius, you can do it. If you're a decently smart person that's not so smart they've never experienced failure in any academic endeavour, you won't try. But if you're in between it's not uncommon for people to feel like they're too good for the small problems, even when they're not good enough for the big ones. So they waste their lives and ruin their careers being too ambitious. Some of them give up, others become cranks when they can't handle the idea that they've failed and rationalise their failure as the system being out to get them, the world not being ready for their genius, etc.
Or in other, more concise, words: "to be effective in some scientific fields it’s actually best not to be too bright. Only geniuses (or cranks) head straight for the grandest and most fundamental problems."
This quote makes me cringe: "The great ecologist E.O. Wilson avers that to be effective in some scientific fields it’s actually best not to be too bright."
Certainly there's merit in exercising a certain degree of rigour, much of scientific work can be boring, but yeesh, "not too bright" sums up the old boys' club right there doesn't it? If you can't be judged on merit, what will you be judged on, eh?
And then there's this doozy: "Only geniuses (or cranks) head straight for the grandest and most fundamental problems."
Completely ignoring the fact that understanding that a particular problem is the grandest in the field requires a modicum of understanding of the field itself. And should we condemn someone to make their life's calling no bolder than coming up with a better lamp-post or cataloguing all the insects in the garden?
Finally, a nugget of truth in this travesty: "Fifty years ago, my generation benefited from the fact that the science profession was still growing exponentially, riding on the expansion of higher education. Then, the young outnumbered the old; moreover, it was normal (and generally mandatory) to retire by one’s mid-60s."
Emphasis [mine] on mandatory. Let's bring that back. Speaking of which, Martin, why haven't you retired yet??
I would love to tear this article apart, quote by quote. But, as a practicing scientist, I, quite frankly, lack the bandwidth.