I agree, to a degree (we're all going to draw a different line in the sand on "fair"). Imagine a kid who has had the best environment possible: his parents wer

I agree, to a degree (we're all going to draw a different line in the sand on "fair"). Imagine a kid who has had the best environment possible: his parents were some kind of scientists, encouraged his interest in the same thing, and had access to the proper facilities. Another kid has parents that don't care about any kind of science, and were too poor to indulge his interest beyond letting him buy some books and lend them at the library. If the first kid wins some prize over the other[1], it's not a prize saying "you did best given equal starting points". It just says that he did the best. If you want to measure something other than skill in science X, like having the best willpower and drive irrespective of background and talent, then you should come up with another competition. [1] And they both did the work themselves, to a reasonable degree. Not something that the parents did for them.