“It’s not rocket science”: prospective comparative study

I enjoy this in the sense with which it's published, but I feel like the authors overlooked one key meaning of the phrases "It's not rocket science" and "It's not brain surgery." They interpret both to mean, essentially, "It doesn't take a genius". That is a valid interpretation, but there is an additional meaning that they gloss over entirely.

Both fields require extensive specialized education, training, and experience. They study only looks at whether the people in these fields are more intelligent than the average population (and one another). In that sense, whether people in those professions score higher on a cognitive test is irrelevant.

Which is all to say, much like the authors of this paper, I am taking a trivial matter far too seriously and being nitpicky to no one's benefit.

For those wondering how this can get published in a scientific journal with good reputation, read https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-type...:

“BMJ Christmas issue

We publish a special two-week issue of The BMJ over Christmas and New Year. We are pleased to consider all kinds of articles, including reports of original research, for this issue.

The soul of the Christmas issue is originality. We don’t want to publish anything that resembles anything we’ve published before. While we welcome light-hearted fare and satire, we do not publish spoofs, hoaxes, or fabricated studies.”