4 ms·

Genius is a sort of myth. For example, people seem to have the idea that before Charles Darwin, biology was in a dark age without any ideas other than intellige

by mvzink 14y ago

Genius is a sort of myth. For example, people seem to have the idea that before Charles Darwin, biology was in a dark age without any ideas other than intelligent design or some such. Well, no, Darwin was actually relatively unoriginal in his ideas about evolution, which was already commonplace in biological circles. He really just added a bit of sciency-but-not-quite-scientific rigor and coined the term "natural selection", then got famous for it. I know several drastically unsuccessful people who exhibit the traits in this article. None of them have stumbled upon an idea or work that would cause society to label them a genius. I don't think a genius is very different from any other person. It's just that a genius gets lucky with their novel ideas. Society calls them geniuses really just because people know their names. I guess my gripe is simply that genius is a social phenomenon, not a trait of an individual, and that it's really quite embarrassing that everyone goes around licking the metaphorical feet of everyone they can think of who did something interesting, or "genius". That said, I do think this is an interesting article, and knowing how to think like a "genius" is probably worth quite a lot.

jacobolus 14y ago
> Darwin was actually relatively unoriginal in his ideas about evolution, which was already commonplace in biological circles. He really just added a bit of sciency-but-not-quite-scientific rigor and coined the term "natural selection", then got famous for it. That’s entirely unfair. Darwin spent his whole life furiously gathering evidence from everywhere he could and communicating with the rest of the biology community worldwide. If you read any of his books (the most fun, I think, is the Voyage of the Beagle) the constant probing and questioning shines through. The man made hypotheses about everything he saw and tested them where he could, or suggested possible tests even when they were beyond him. The character I see when I read Darwin is a passionately curious, perceptive, insightful, and careful man. To call, for instance, The Origin of Species, one of the most remarkable presentations of evidence of the 19th century, “sciencey-but-not-scientific” is to project modern standards onto the past. There were certainly other people with similar ideas in the biology community (Wallace for one), but they weren’t anywhere close to mainstream. Darwin’s evidence in The Origin, however, was overwhelming. And It stands up remarkably well today; some parts could certainly use updates after 150 more years of inquiry by many more people with better tools, but it’s mostly very good.
- olalonde 14y ago
  There actually exists some "hard-wired" geniuses, but not the kind of genius we would use to describe e.g. Darwin. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd1gywPOibg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd1gywPOibg edit: Found a better reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superhuman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superhuman
zerostar07 14y ago
There are many other canonical examples of geniuses that serve as a good foundation for the myth of Genius. Think about how daring it was to propose some of the most unconventional scientific insights when there wasn't even enough experimental evidence to justify them (why would light speed ever be constant? why would anyone ever think light is emitted in discrete packets?). Those ideas sounded crazy enough as it is, now imagine taking the extra mile to create whole scientific theories around them.
- Retric 14y ago
  You have the light speed thing backwards. People had already had a fair amount of evidence that the speed of light was constant, it's just one of those things that's hard to accept / build a reasonable model for why that might be the case. Think of it as an open question if the experiments where inaccurate or the universe was just strange. Until relatively came along and said, assume the speed of light is constant what would that mean? 1849: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fizeau%E2%80%93Foucault_apparatus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fizeau%E2%80%93Foucault_apparat... "Fizeau's value for light's speed was about 5% too high." which is not that bad for a first stab. And good enough to show that water slowed the speed of light vs speeding it up. vs 1900 to 1905: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity
  - zerostar07 14y ago
    The genius leap (from which special relativity is derived) is the postulate that it's constant for regardless of the state of motion. The older research mentions nothing of the sort.
    - Retric 14y ago
      No, there had already been some experiments that should have been accurate enough to detect the orbital motion of the earth and it's effect on the speed of light. Google '1890 speed of light experiments' and you should get Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers page 21 - 27. It talks about the interferometer experiments that suggested the speed of light was constant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry
Tichy 14y ago
Yet some people produce brilliant things, others don't. While I also think that it might be attainable for everyone (at least start from birth, not sure about turning into a genius in later age), not everybody becomes a brilliant producer. A lot of circumstances have to come together (for example Mozart's father was apparently also one of the most famous music teachers of his time and started to train him from an early age). Maybe you could hire a brilliant music teacher and start training your child from age 3 and produce a music genius. But few people choose to do so. Again I have to refer to Laszlo Polgar who turned his three kids into chess prodigies - and it was planned, he even advertised for a wife who would be willing to do the experiment with him. To rephrase: he didn't go "hey, my kids seem to enjoy chess, let's teach them more of it", he went "let's have three kids and turn them into chess prodigies". The article posted here is pretty useless, though...

by mvzink 14y ago

jacobolus 14y ago

> Darwin was actually relatively unoriginal in his ideas about evolution, which was already commonplace in biological circles. He really just added a bit of sciency-but-not-quite-scientific rigor and coined the term "natural selection", then got famous for it. That’s entirely unfair. Darwin spent his whole life furiously gathering evidence from everywhere he could and communicating with the rest of the biology community worldwide. If you read any of his books (the most fun, I think, is the Voyage of the Beagle) the constant probing and questioning shines through. The man made hypotheses about everything he saw and tested them where he could, or suggested possible tests even when they were beyond him. The character I see when I read Darwin is a passionately curious, perceptive, insightful, and careful man. To call, for instance, The Origin of Species, one of the most remarkable presentations of evidence of the 19th century, “sciencey-but-not-scientific” is to project modern standards onto the past. There were certainly other people with similar ideas in the biology community (Wallace for one), but they weren’t anywhere close to mainstream. Darwin’s evidence in The Origin, however, was overwhelming. And It stands up remarkably well today; some parts could certainly use updates after 150 more years of inquiry by many more people with better tools, but it’s mostly very good.

olalonde 14y ago
There actually exists some "hard-wired" geniuses, but not the kind of genius we would use to describe e.g. Darwin. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd1gywPOibg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd1gywPOibg edit: Found a better reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superhuman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superhuman

zerostar07 14y ago

There are many other canonical examples of geniuses that serve as a good foundation for the myth of Genius. Think about how daring it was to propose some of the most unconventional scientific insights when there wasn't even enough experimental evidence to justify them (why would light speed ever be constant? why would anyone ever think light is emitted in discrete packets?). Those ideas sounded crazy enough as it is, now imagine taking the extra mile to create whole scientific theories around them.

Retric 14y ago
You have the light speed thing backwards. People had already had a fair amount of evidence that the speed of light was constant, it's just one of those things that's hard to accept / build a reasonable model for why that might be the case. Think of it as an open question if the experiments where inaccurate or the universe was just strange. Until relatively came along and said, assume the speed of light is constant what would that mean? 1849: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fizeau%E2%80%93Foucault_apparatus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fizeau%E2%80%93Foucault_apparat... "Fizeau's value for light's speed was about 5% too high." which is not that bad for a first stab. And good enough to show that water slowed the speed of light vs speeding it up. vs 1900 to 1905: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity
- zerostar07 14y ago
  The genius leap (from which special relativity is derived) is the postulate that it's constant for regardless of the state of motion. The older research mentions nothing of the sort.
  - Retric 14y ago
    No, there had already been some experiments that should have been accurate enough to detect the orbital motion of the earth and it's effect on the speed of light. Google '1890 speed of light experiments' and you should get Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers page 21 - 27. It talks about the interferometer experiments that suggested the speed of light was constant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry

Tichy 14y ago

Yet some people produce brilliant things, others don't. While I also think that it might be attainable for everyone (at least start from birth, not sure about turning into a genius in later age), not everybody becomes a brilliant producer. A lot of circumstances have to come together (for example Mozart's father was apparently also one of the most famous music teachers of his time and started to train him from an early age). Maybe you could hire a brilliant music teacher and start training your child from age 3 and produce a music genius. But few people choose to do so. Again I have to refer to Laszlo Polgar who turned his three kids into chess prodigies - and it was planned, he even advertised for a wife who would be willing to do the experiment with him. To rephrase: he didn't go "hey, my kids seem to enjoy chess, let's teach them more of it", he went "let's have three kids and turn them into chess prodigies". The article posted here is pretty useless, though...