It could also be the pace at which the information is conveyed. The lovely information is dished out at such a fast pace that students who would like to absorb

It could also be the pace at which the information is conveyed. The lovely information is dished out at such a fast pace that students who would like to absorb the info at a deeper and more intuitive level are left behind while the equation-memorizers win even though they would not be able to describe WHY something is so. Secondly, science has become so compartmentalized that students with a "big picture" view of what science can do get turned off by classes that start off by focusing on microscopic aspect of some part of science.