I no longer agree with my previous mentality that "anyone can do it if they try" and "everyone is capable". It was an innocent, non-judgmental, perspective that I'm glad I had because it helped prevent some sort of inflated ego. But, the older I get, the more people I meet, and a mini stroke later that knocked down my IQ some very noticeable points, I've realized that I'm incredibly lucky to be above average intelligence (in certain areas). It has made life relatively easy. Having the somewhat rare perspective of experiencing an instantaneous drop in intelligence, I would never agree with you that we are all like Einstein. I firmly believe that the "obviousness" that a more intelligent mind sees cannot be learned. It's seeing things that aren't there, that others can't see at all, or take much too long to see. For this reason, I believe there is a very real difference in the range of what people are capable of. I think everyone here should be thankful for their roll of the dice.
And I'm actually coming from the other direction: I'm arguing we shouldn't put anyone too much on a pedestal.
While he definitely made some awesome contributions; in the end even Einstein was a mortal man who will have struggled with life, and he likely had his own setbacks and made his own share of mistakes just as much as anyone else.
> I'm arguing we shouldn't put anyone too much on a pedestal.
I don't want to think that I'm saying we should. I think each person can achieve great things, but only some will be able to achieve great things in the realm of theoretical physics. And some will achieve mediocrity with less effort. I don't know if that warrants a pedestal or not since one mans greatness very well could be another mans mediocrity.
I want to say that it would be nice if society would recognize and be comfortable with the innate differences in all of us, since we are all just humans with spectrum for all things related to our biology, but I don't know what that society would end up looking like.
