> Am I offending egos by saying that a person in a hot dog stand has the same potential to get a phd as a person that currently has a phd? Is it that educated people like to believe that they somehow are special and separate from people that did not go to college?

I'm not trying to prove your thesis is false, but that sort of argument is not conducive to interesting debate. You're preemptively psychologizing people who disagree with you.

And it's not like you're saying something obviously true -- so that people who disagree with must have hidden motives. On the contrary, your thesis goes against our everyday experience, not only because we know people who are stupider than us, but also people who are much smarter than us.