You can't take the extreme tail end of the distribution of interests, aptitudes and abilities, that is, people who pursue an academic career in mathematics, for

You can't take the extreme tail end of the distribution of interests, aptitudes and abilities, that is, people who pursue an academic career in mathematics, for the entire distribution of people who are taught or need to use mathematics at some point in their lives. Twenty years ago, when I was in college, I remember a classmate had problems installing the particular software we needed to use. The teacher told her that the only solution would be to install Linux on her laptop. All the other students had managed to install that software on their Windows laptops. The teacher was either one step ahead or 25 steps behind.