[nephihaha]

As I say elsewhere, don't shoot the messenger. This story has been getting a lot of publicity.

In the scheme of things, scientists are a lot less common in any society than, say, waiting staff or groundskeepers. Nuclear physicists are not common – I have met one or two in my time, and they were clearly way above the average in terms of personal intelligence, mathematical ability etc. I've met far more medical researchers. The same would apply to certain other scientific fields.

Lab assistants are more common than experts in any scientific field, and the main questions we should be asking here are which areas of scientific research etc they worked in, and how technically qualified they were.