Merit

In Apology, Socrates remarks "I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do." There's two things I'd like to bring this too: Firstly, if you did not put the above through any scrutiny because Socrates said it, I'd like to point out to you that in Phaedo, he 'proves' the existence of ghosts. Socrates may have been a brilliant philosopher, but that doesn't mean he was right. Aristotle was a great scientist, but we are reasonably certain now that the world isn't an amalgamation of five elements. Hippocrates founded medical thought, but stated in the oath that "I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others." Its been two thousand years since then, and we've moved on. Maybe.

Its been only relatively recently that medicine has no longer become entirely a privilege of the upper class of society, and even then it still remains a degree that can be, more or less, bought. But, there are now other "streams" of entry available. Rural and indigenous students can enter medicine - and university - with lower academic requirements.

And, naturally, the city folk complained of discrimination, the rich ones bought country houses to give themselves rural addresses, and I mused at the fact that if I lived across the road I would be 'rurally disadvantaged.'

And yeah, it is discrimination. And no, I don't think that's a bad thing. Discrimination is important with dealing with groups of people. How else can you discriminate between them? If an aboriginal person does badly on the academic entry requirements, does it mean they're stupid, or does it mean they spent their childhood learning to hunt and forage, and not their times tables? They may have the sharpest eyes in the world, could spot minuscule fibroids on the liver, read MRI's flawlessly, but because these skills aren't assessed in an exam, they can't gain entry. It's because those particular skills have deemed to be meritorious by society. It used to be your parentage and your gender that determined your 'merit.' Now that it is intelligence based, a large proportion of the course is female. And when they enter the research arena, research will change...science and knowledge itself will change because the cultural bias through which it is researched will change, and we will find gaping moral holes in today's society because of it. Two thousand years ago, slavery was law. Forty-six years ago we gave Aboriginals the vote. Ten years ago we sterilised people with disabilities without their consent. Yesterday?

There's always a long way to go.