How Do You Spot a Genius? 385
Hugh Pickens writes "Ingrid Wickelgren reports in Scientific American that people have long-equated genius with intelligence, but it is more aptly characterized by creative productivity which depends on a combination of genetics, opportunity and effort. 'Nobody can be called out for outstanding contributions to a field without a lot of hard work, but progress is faster if you are born with the right skills. Personality also plays a role. If you are very open to new experiences and if you have psychopathic traits (yes, as in those shared by serial killers) such as being aggressive and emotionally tough, you are more likely to be considered a genius.' True creativity and genius depends on an unfiltered view of the world, one that is unconstrained by preconceptions and more open to novelty, writes Wickelgren. 'In particular, a less conceptual and more literal way of thinking, one more typical of people with autism, can open the mind up to seeing details that most people miss.' Our schools devote few resources on nurturing nascent genius, concludes Wickelgren, because they are focused on helping those students most likely to be left behind. 'We need to train teachers to spot giftedness, which may take a variety of forms and often needs to be accompanied by creativity, drive and passion. Offering a greater variety of enrichment activities to children will cause many more hidden talents to surface. And accelerated classes and psychological coaching are essential for nurturing talent as early and vigorously as possible.'"
Duh (Score:4, Insightful)
His (her?) UID is less than five digits, of course.
Autism != Genuis Savant (Score:5, Insightful)
Another issue is that autistic savants often get much more attention than their typical (ie: non-autistic) counterparts due to being able to carry out an apparently amazing mental feat despite suffering from a crippling set of mental limitations and/or deficiencies. Someone not suffering from such a condition is just generally thought of as very smart, and being an educated savant is not such a crowd pleaser, especially in an age where anti-intellectualism is on the rise. Everybody likes a hero story, but few people are comfortable accepting the notion that there are much smarter people out in the world.
If parents are lucky enough to have the funding to send their kids to private schools with a Behavioral Interventionist (BI), then the strengths of the child are usually discovered early on, and it can make the kid's life a lot easier. If the parents don't have the cash though, the kid likely won't enjoy that benefit.
On a side note, one should consider noticing talent amongst the non-autistic population in a school. How does one filter on this criteria when kids are not challenged? I turned out to be a math whiz in school, and was doing calculus by the time I was entering high school. If it weren't for my parents, I would've had to endure 5 years of boredom in high school math, as most of the teachers just came with a hangover, passed the daily readings out, and sat at their desks playing minesweeper. Thanks to my parents, I was allowed to fly ahead in math, and use my spare time for more shop and science courses. If the teachers don't care in the first place, the odds of them helping out their brightest students is minimal.
Background: Been debating this topic with a colleague who has 10 years experience in this field for years over lunch.
Where's Waldo? (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to train teachers to spot giftedness...
You're a genius kid, now back in line for your standardized test. Or will government officials approve extra resources to cater to the geniuses? If so, how will they handle irate parents of the "unspotted".
Sociopathy Training (Score:5, Insightful)
'If you are very open to new experiences and if you have psychopathic traits (yes, as in those shared by serial killers) such as being aggressive and emotionally tough, you are more likely to be considered a genius.' ... 'Offering a greater variety of enrichment activities to children will cause many more hidden talents to surface. And accelerated classes and psychological coaching are essential for nurturing talent as early and vigorously as possible.'
We should also have people they trust randomly hit them with no explanation, to nurture that desirable sociopathic trait.
Now, wait... That doesn't sound right. In fact, it sounds so wrong that there must be some other explanation. How about this:
Perhaps the answer is not to hold sociopaths up as geniuses just because they succeed in an economic system that can be exploited by sociopaths. Perhaps when Scientific American discusses genius, it should not accept the average idiot's perception but should delve a bit deeper and even explain why sociopathic business success is not a good measure of genius. Perhaps Scientific American should focus on actual geniuses rather than merely people in the top 1% in intelligence, who are also willing to harm society to win.
Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Scientific American's role is to reflect the average man's perception of genius. Perhaps Scientific American should report on the coach of the next Superbowl winning team, since that is what all the beer-soaked fat-part-of-the-curve folks at the pub seem to shout after the game, "That coach is a genuis!"
Re:Autism != Genuis Savant (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not what is being said here at all. The claim is that brain development in geniuses shares some similarity to traits found in psychopathy and autism, not that any one of those traits is a superset of any others. These things are all spectra.
In other words, it is perfectly possible to be a brilliant savant without being autistic, there's just evidence that some portion of that genius has to do with a world view that shares some commonalities, if not as strong a deviation, as autism. You're not constrained needlessly by preconceptions, but are not so incapable of understanding those preconceptions that you can't make use of them to interact normally with other people.
The accuracy of above statements is another question entirely, but this is not the article you were looking to complain about.
Left Behind (Score:5, Insightful)
because they are focused on helping those students most likely to be left behind.
Wrong. Schools focus on the kids roughly within the first standard deviation limits on the normal curve, not because they care but because they are usually a one-size-fits-all solution. People above or below the first standard deviation or so are too different to work well under those circumstances, so they start falling out of the system. Ironic that someone felt the need to link to the No Child Left Behind Act wikipedia entry. That law was an exemplary piece of parent con job, government pork for companies that provide utterly worthless metrics that in no credible way have improved education, and I challenge everyone to refute that in a credible, empirically, and extensively documented fashion. To the contrary, "teaching to the test" has become synonymous with "education" in the US. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but we will pay a steep price for that in the not too distant future.
Re: education vs. learning (Score:2, Insightful)
I've heard numerous variations of this by parents trying to justify why their precious snowflake doesn't do well in school. Usually it is the teacher's fault, and their child is just so much smarter than the other students. BS. If your child is so super intelligent that ordinary schoolwork bores them, they should be smart enough to breeze through the tests. They should just "play the game" while at school and do their own learning at home, or in additional enrichment programs (most are free for low income).
It is much more fun to pursue your own course of study in whatever you feel like learning about than be lead in some school based program. It will be tailored for the child because you come up with the plan yourself. If you want additional ideas, there are plenty of teachers/counselors/professors that would be glad to provide ideas. Look at how many things that are available now that weren't a few years ago on the internet. You can learn astronomy, poetry, language, engines, math, physics, programming, etc., etc. Stop expecting everyone else to do it for you.
Re:Begs the question... SIGH (Score:5, Insightful)
False. It raises the question. We've been over this.
This is probably a battle we'll end up losing. If things continue as they are, it will eventually mean "raise the question" - if it doesn't already - simply by dint of popular usage. I won't be using it, but to be honest I'm getting fed up of trying to explain the difference to people who could* care less.
*joke
Re: education vs. learning (Score:1, Insightful)
Nothing like an article about "geniuses" to bring out people who believe they're "geniuses" on the internet. IQ means very little to true intelligence.
Not how you'd expect (i.e. not likely a prodigy) (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe it or not there are thousands of people we'd call prodigies... and not many of them ever become geniuses. And conversely not every genius is a prodigy. As the article says it's a combination of determination and above average intellect. Obviously that doesn't have the sizzle and flash of a Good Will Hunting but seems to be accurate. I think the article is a little over the top in emphasizing the eccentric aspects though. Everyone wants to ascribe a little madness to genius but I think it's more a matter of communication being difficult due to a vast gap between the way they see the world and the way everyone else does. The real geniuses are able to bridge that gap.
I fit where I sit. (Score:4, Insightful)
People can control your emotions only as much as you allow them to. Don't give them that power!
Thanks for posting something intelligent. Post after post from self proclaimed geniuses who couldn't work out how to amuse themselves at school were starting to bore me. And yeah, everyone is forced into a situations where they are powerless to one degree or another, working through that takes more than intelligence, it takes 'character'. Newton is recognized as one of the greatest polymaths of all time, but I've read two biographies on the guy and (unlike Eisenstein, Feynman, Sagan,...) his social skills were as sharp as Sheldon's.
At the end of the day intelligence is contextual, a genius in the lab is very different to a genius in the boxing ring. Muhammad Ali, Voltaire, Sun Tsu, Mozart - all geniuses, the only thing they have in common is they extend their chosen art, rather than just practiced it to the best of their ability. However being a genius in one context often comes at the cost of being a complete moron when the context changes, eg: from a warm basement full of wizz-kid toys to a cold class room full of other children.
Re:Exactly what I was going to say (Score:5, Insightful)
Great minds think alike.
If this is true, then what about the abilities of magnets, where like poles repel and opposite poles attract?.
Well, you see, magnets can't think. If this analogy is an example of your "brilliance" then count me as a skeptic.