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I am not sure that a ‘bloodline’ is a valid genetic concept. It depends a lot who the partner is, after all they provide 50% of the offspring’s genetic material

by Gatsky 7y ago

I am not sure that a ‘bloodline’ is a valid genetic concept. It depends a lot who the partner is, after all they provide 50% of the offspring’s genetic material. Put another way, if you are a genius in some field, the chance of having a child with someone of equal or greater aptitude is effectively zero. The ‘more to the story’ is possibly just affluence and family stability, which are also culturally embedded.

nyolfen 7y ago
> Put another way, if you are a genius in some field, the chance of having a child with someone of equal or greater aptitude is effectively zero. aka regression to the mean
bostik 7y ago
> The ‘more to the story’ is possibly just affluence and family stability, which are also culturally embedded. At a guess I would think these are the more important factors. Being born into an affluent family gives access to higher likelihood of more varying influences and stimuli from an early age. Children are by their nature curious creatures, so having the possibility to satisfy their curiosity in more avenues should reflect on their later ability to absorb new information in these fields (because they already have an established baseline knowledge). Family stability probably helps to support curiosity and emotional safety. When failures are treated as positive experiences ("what did we learn from this?"), as opposed to wasted effort, you are more likely to allow yourself to seek more such experiences. Of course there are outliers. But over generations, I would expect more innovations and brilliant minds to emerge from families who can provide and support their offspring with the environment to flourish in their fields of interest.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
codingslave 7y ago
But what I am saying is this, the highest levels of genius, I would argue, are categorically different than just highly intelligent people. I think theres something different about the way their brains are structured. I've interacted with some of the top minds in a few fields, and I never come off with the feeling that they are merely farther along some kind of "intelligence spectrum". It always feels as if their thinking is different, i.e. its source and methods are a different type of brain. I think theres a few mutations floating around in a few different pools of the population
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  This is just unnecessarily many moving parts. All it takes to have extra geniuses is for grad students to marry each other and have a bunch of kids, instead of dating in the general pool. Also, the thinking of regular people is different in myriad ways, if you pay attention.

by Gatsky 7y ago

nyolfen 7y ago

> Put another way, if you are a genius in some field, the chance of having a child with someone of equal or greater aptitude is effectively zero. aka regression to the mean

bostik 7y ago

> The ‘more to the story’ is possibly just affluence and family stability, which are also culturally embedded. At a guess I would think these are the more important factors. Being born into an affluent family gives access to higher likelihood of more varying influences and stimuli from an early age. Children are by their nature curious creatures, so having the possibility to satisfy their curiosity in more avenues should reflect on their later ability to absorb new information in these fields (because they already have an established baseline knowledge). Family stability probably helps to support curiosity and emotional safety. When failures are treated as positive experiences ("what did we learn from this?"), as opposed to wasted effort, you are more likely to allow yourself to seek more such experiences. Of course there are outliers. But over generations, I would expect more innovations and brilliant minds to emerge from families who can provide and support their offspring with the environment to flourish in their fields of interest.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

codingslave 7y ago

But what I am saying is this, the highest levels of genius, I would argue, are categorically different than just highly intelligent people. I think theres something different about the way their brains are structured. I've interacted with some of the top minds in a few fields, and I never come off with the feeling that they are merely farther along some kind of "intelligence spectrum". It always feels as if their thinking is different, i.e. its source and methods are a different type of brain. I think theres a few mutations floating around in a few different pools of the population

SamReidHughes 7y ago
This is just unnecessarily many moving parts. All it takes to have extra geniuses is for grad students to marry each other and have a bunch of kids, instead of dating in the general pool. Also, the thinking of regular people is different in myriad ways, if you pay attention.