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I highly doubt Einstein or Shannon (as the article implies) ever saw themselves as more than passionate. They may have kept it to themselves, but they were cer

I highly doubt Einstein or Shannon (as the article implies) ever saw themselves as more than passionate. They may have kept it to themselves, but they were certainly aware of their status. Who are we to say what the author should or shouldn't study? Why is studying a genius a bad thing? (And they are geniuses, if it's possible to compare one person to another at all.) You've made some good points about how someone becomes a genius: it's mostly luck, especially in genetics and upbringing. But there's no reason that studying this is inherently useless.

gboudrias 9y ago
Fair enough regarding the status. > Who are we to say what the author should or shouldn't study? Why is studying a genius a bad thing? The authors can do whatever they want with their time. But people who buy books and read articles on geniuses would be better served buying and reading science-based books on intelligence. They mostly have all the same advice without the fluff of big names. Also they are actually empirical science, which can't always be said about studies on "famous" people (which to me seem more akin to profiling). That's not to say you can't enjoy a good biography. But titles like these and what they imply just rub me the wrong way. We're not Einsteins, we'll never be geniuses, and that's fine.
- indlebe 9y ago
  I concur. As a teacher and mentor to students, I find that assigning the label of "genius" to anyone famous for their accomplishments can have a negative affect on young learner's goals. They often think "oh, they're just a genius, that's how they've accomplished X". I try and dispel this, giving them examples of how most "geniuses" just worked really hard on one thing, and that if they focus and work hard on the one thing they are passionate about they will find that someday they may be referred to as a "genius".
  - msla 9y ago
    Yes. They worked to get to the limits of their abilities, and that's how they accomplished so much. Without that work, their potential would have been wasted. Everyone's limits are at a different location for different tasks, and they can be pushed to some extent, but not indefinitely. (If nothing else, people eventually die.) Finding how far your limits in a useful or fun area can be pushed is a worthwhile task as well, and progress is measured by change relative to your past, not someone else's. So we sit between two tragedies: On the one hand, we have people who believe genius is magic, and unapproachable, who never work to find what their level is, and never work to push it out. On the other, we have people who think any level can be attained through hard work, who work themselves into burnout or worse trying to reach goals their lives aren't long enough to attain, and who never appreciate the progress they have made.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > But people who buy books and read articles on geniuses would be better served buying and reading science-based books on intelligence. I'd say they'd be even better served buying and reading actual science books. Suddenly they could realize they're smarter than they thought.
  - scottLobster 9y ago
    Perhaps, but not necessarily. Sadly I've found most people have reasonable innate intelligence but were never taught logic. They were never given the subtle tools need to even figure out basic problems on a logical basis, instead relying on intuition and some basic pattern recognition. Dealing with vast logical abstractions, even if put in layman's terms, simply overwhelms them. You first have to teach them analysis, how to break things down and recombine them. A good example here is teaching beginning computer science students how to divide a large, complicated task into a long list of small tasks. Or teaching derivations in basic physics. It's something that's not really formally taught outside of the sciences, and that's a shame.
    - moretai 9y ago
      Any books to get improve my logic muscle?
      - ElonsMosque 9y ago
        Bump, I'm curious about this aswell.
      - scottLobster 9y ago
        There are plenty of good books on Mathematical logic and set theory, but they're pretty dense, dry and tend to lack context. Honestly I'd recommend the more complex puzzle games. Top recommendation there would probably be SpaceChem: https://www.gog.com/game/spacechem https://www.gog.com/game/spacechem Solutions to each problem are readily available on youtube, and while it starts off extremely basic the mid and upper level puzzles force you to break things down into distinct parts and have them work together. Best part is there's theoretically thousands of solutions to every puzzle, so even if you crack and look one up, you can then challenge yourself to make a better solution in some way. In fact the game shows you metrics at the end of each puzzle, showing how your solution compared to other players in terms of time, number of parts used, etc. It's also a lot more entertaining than a textbook as has a pretty awesome soundtrack. :)
brownbat 9y ago
I really hope Chandrasekhar realized he was a genius. Anything less would be tragic. If I hold this hope for someone who is a genius but sadly not a household name, I should probably hope the same for people who happened to become famous as well.
faeoildia 9y ago
This topic runs close to home for me in a a couple of ways. First, my research is broadly in the area - not geniuses, but individual differences. Second, as a scientist, in professional capacity I've come into personal contact with a couple of giants in the field who have been called geniuses, some who most people here would recognize, others who might be less well-known. I've grown very disillusioned with the term "genius." Part of this has become because of how painfully obvious randomness plays in all of this, from a scientific perspective - not all, but a lot of it. Another part of it, though, is from seeing how social factors shape our labeling of geniuses from others, and the consequences that has. Maybe they're the same thing, but to me they're a bit different, in that you can ask "why is this high-ability person the way they are" but you can also ask "how is that this high-ability person becomes singled out"? It's not so much that those labeled geniuses haven't made contributions. But in the couple of cases I'm aware of, it's almost as if there's a cult of personality surrounding them, that amplifies the apparent importance of what they did, far beyond the person's actual contributions. So that their mistakes, and the sometimes serious consequences of those mistakes are conveniently forgotten; also forgotten are others in the field who contributed the same ideas or findings, but at the wrong time or in the wrong outlet. There's dynamic patterns, too, in that the person who proposes the same things, but to the wrong audience or at the wrong time is literally discouraged and punished, and the other is encouraged and rewarded. Is a framework that includes the concept of genius even accurate then? I think one needs to take very seriously in life whether or not they believe in a just world and why.
- nnfy 9y ago
  I agree with your sentiment, however I would extend it beyond genius to success in general; and our tendency to conflate the two makes it substantially harder to study either, I think.

gboudrias 9y ago

Fair enough regarding the status. > Who are we to say what the author should or shouldn't study? Why is studying a genius a bad thing? The authors can do whatever they want with their time. But people who buy books and read articles on geniuses would be better served buying and reading science-based books on intelligence. They mostly have all the same advice without the fluff of big names. Also they are actually empirical science, which can't always be said about studies on "famous" people (which to me seem more akin to profiling). That's not to say you can't enjoy a good biography. But titles like these and what they imply just rub me the wrong way. We're not Einsteins, we'll never be geniuses, and that's fine.

indlebe 9y ago
I concur. As a teacher and mentor to students, I find that assigning the label of "genius" to anyone famous for their accomplishments can have a negative affect on young learner's goals. They often think "oh, they're just a genius, that's how they've accomplished X". I try and dispel this, giving them examples of how most "geniuses" just worked really hard on one thing, and that if they focus and work hard on the one thing they are passionate about they will find that someday they may be referred to as a "genius".
- msla 9y ago
  Yes. They worked to get to the limits of their abilities, and that's how they accomplished so much. Without that work, their potential would have been wasted. Everyone's limits are at a different location for different tasks, and they can be pushed to some extent, but not indefinitely. (If nothing else, people eventually die.) Finding how far your limits in a useful or fun area can be pushed is a worthwhile task as well, and progress is measured by change relative to your past, not someone else's. So we sit between two tragedies: On the one hand, we have people who believe genius is magic, and unapproachable, who never work to find what their level is, and never work to push it out. On the other, we have people who think any level can be attained through hard work, who work themselves into burnout or worse trying to reach goals their lives aren't long enough to attain, and who never appreciate the progress they have made.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
> But people who buy books and read articles on geniuses would be better served buying and reading science-based books on intelligence. I'd say they'd be even better served buying and reading actual science books. Suddenly they could realize they're smarter than they thought.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  Perhaps, but not necessarily. Sadly I've found most people have reasonable innate intelligence but were never taught logic. They were never given the subtle tools need to even figure out basic problems on a logical basis, instead relying on intuition and some basic pattern recognition. Dealing with vast logical abstractions, even if put in layman's terms, simply overwhelms them. You first have to teach them analysis, how to break things down and recombine them. A good example here is teaching beginning computer science students how to divide a large, complicated task into a long list of small tasks. Or teaching derivations in basic physics. It's something that's not really formally taught outside of the sciences, and that's a shame.
  - moretai 9y ago
    Any books to get improve my logic muscle?
    - ElonsMosque 9y ago
      Bump, I'm curious about this aswell.
    - scottLobster 9y ago
      There are plenty of good books on Mathematical logic and set theory, but they're pretty dense, dry and tend to lack context. Honestly I'd recommend the more complex puzzle games. Top recommendation there would probably be SpaceChem: https://www.gog.com/game/spacechem https://www.gog.com/game/spacechem Solutions to each problem are readily available on youtube, and while it starts off extremely basic the mid and upper level puzzles force you to break things down into distinct parts and have them work together. Best part is there's theoretically thousands of solutions to every puzzle, so even if you crack and look one up, you can then challenge yourself to make a better solution in some way. In fact the game shows you metrics at the end of each puzzle, showing how your solution compared to other players in terms of time, number of parts used, etc. It's also a lot more entertaining than a textbook as has a pretty awesome soundtrack. :)

brownbat 9y ago

I really hope Chandrasekhar realized he was a genius. Anything less would be tragic. If I hold this hope for someone who is a genius but sadly not a household name, I should probably hope the same for people who happened to become famous as well.

faeoildia 9y ago

This topic runs close to home for me in a a couple of ways. First, my research is broadly in the area - not geniuses, but individual differences. Second, as a scientist, in professional capacity I've come into personal contact with a couple of giants in the field who have been called geniuses, some who most people here would recognize, others who might be less well-known. I've grown very disillusioned with the term "genius." Part of this has become because of how painfully obvious randomness plays in all of this, from a scientific perspective - not all, but a lot of it. Another part of it, though, is from seeing how social factors shape our labeling of geniuses from others, and the consequences that has. Maybe they're the same thing, but to me they're a bit different, in that you can ask "why is this high-ability person the way they are" but you can also ask "how is that this high-ability person becomes singled out"? It's not so much that those labeled geniuses haven't made contributions. But in the couple of cases I'm aware of, it's almost as if there's a cult of personality surrounding them, that amplifies the apparent importance of what they did, far beyond the person's actual contributions. So that their mistakes, and the sometimes serious consequences of those mistakes are conveniently forgotten; also forgotten are others in the field who contributed the same ideas or findings, but at the wrong time or in the wrong outlet. There's dynamic patterns, too, in that the person who proposes the same things, but to the wrong audience or at the wrong time is literally discouraged and punished, and the other is encouraged and rewarded. Is a framework that includes the concept of genius even accurate then? I think one needs to take very seriously in life whether or not they believe in a just world and why.

nnfy 9y ago
I agree with your sentiment, however I would extend it beyond genius to success in general; and our tendency to conflate the two makes it substantially harder to study either, I think.