I don't see justification for these two statements: "A doctorate just means much less, now, than it did. Most of today’s physicists would not measure up to the standards that the field held for itself when that photo was taken in 1927." I.e. sure, the number of awarded PhDs is larger, and therefore the number of Nobel prizes awarded per PhD is lower. Also at least in fundamental physics there was not much progress over last 20-40 years, especially if you compare it with early 20th century when quantum mechanics and general relativity were 'created'. But I don't know what that tells about an average PhD now vs average PhD then or 'standards of the field'.