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> Later in life its hard to rekindle the spark of curiosity, and early in life its easy to extinguish it Can this be backed up statistically ? Can a born geni

by chdir 11y ago

> Later in life its hard to rekindle the spark of curiosity, and early in life its easy to extinguish it Can this be backed up statistically ? Can a born genius have their spark extinguished by adverse circumstances or poor parenting ? I feel the exceptional ones march on their way to genius despite family support.

qrendel 11y ago
Seems a bit of a selection bias, in that no one who had their potential severely and permanently reduced from a young age is likely to be recognized as a genius. So you of course only end up recognizing "genius" in people who overcame whatever obstacles were presented them, or else had few to overcome in the first place. The best example I can think of is Chris Langan[1], though we only know who he is because he maintained some form of recognizable intellect in spite of his upbringing. Had his beatings led to debilitating psychological problems, brain damage, homelessness, or other things of that nature, we wouldn't be recognizing him as someone held back by his early childhood. Which sort of shows the inherent selection bias. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan
ChuckMcM 11y ago
It would be challenging to design such an experiment for obvious reasons. I've observed the cohort of children associated with my friends. Nearly all the kids started out quite curious, but by middle school there was definite segmentation, and by college it was very much a smaller subset who were still out there asking questions and following up on the answers. I will also add that it is the curse of parenting that you cannot re-do the experiment. And so every choice you make, strict/lenient, forbid/allow, debate/fiat, talk/not-talk is full of questions about whether or not it would be better for your child if you acted in a different way. It is really stressful on the parents.

by chdir 11y ago

qrendel 11y ago

Seems a bit of a selection bias, in that no one who had their potential severely and permanently reduced from a young age is likely to be recognized as a genius. So you of course only end up recognizing "genius" in people who overcame whatever obstacles were presented them, or else had few to overcome in the first place. The best example I can think of is Chris Langan[1], though we only know who he is because he maintained some form of recognizable intellect in spite of his upbringing. Had his beatings led to debilitating psychological problems, brain damage, homelessness, or other things of that nature, we wouldn't be recognizing him as someone held back by his early childhood. Which sort of shows the inherent selection bias. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan

ChuckMcM 11y ago

It would be challenging to design such an experiment for obvious reasons. I've observed the cohort of children associated with my friends. Nearly all the kids started out quite curious, but by middle school there was definite segmentation, and by college it was very much a smaller subset who were still out there asking questions and following up on the answers. I will also add that it is the curse of parenting that you cannot re-do the experiment. And so every choice you make, strict/lenient, forbid/allow, debate/fiat, talk/not-talk is full of questions about whether or not it would be better for your child if you acted in a different way. It is really stressful on the parents.