Couldn't agree with this more. The Symbolic Logic courses (from the Philosophy department) were some of the most useful that I took at university. While having a strong grasp of other mathematical disciplines can be useful in various situations, most of it comes down to an ability to think logically.

I've seen a number of defences of the iPad like this, and maybe I am missing the point, but what are the few things that the iPad does better?

Reading eBooks? The cheaper Kindle2 with it's established Amazon store, eye-friendly display, better battery life and free 3G connection seems like a better bet.

Portable movie player? I'd probably rather have a device that allows me to also watch the physical DVDs I already own (like portable DVD players), or had a large amount of internal storage for a media library.

Portable music player? I'd rather have something that fits in my pocket.

Working with documents (iWork)? I'd rather have a device with a dedicated keyboard that doesn't take up limited screen real estate), though even without that I'm not sure how the iPad would be better at this.

Playing games? I haven't seen any evidence that the iPad would be superior at this then a dedicated device like the PSP or DS.

The only area I can maybe see the iPad being superior is in portable web browsing and email access, but these things can already be done on netbooks and phones more cheaply (and in the case of phones at least) more portably. From what I can see, Apple isn't focusing on "do[ing] very few things better" with the iPad, but rather going the other way and providing a device to do many things at once, but not quite as well as various dedicated devices.