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I also seem to recall from The Making of the Atomic Bomb that the theoretical physicists of the era were noted as having the highest verbal intelligence of any

I also seem to recall from The Making of the Atomic Bomb that the theoretical physicists of the era were noted as having the highest verbal intelligence of any group of scientists. That struck me since I would not have expected it. EDIT: I found the quote, from chapter 6: Psychometricians have closely questioned American scientists of this first modern generation, curious to know what kind of men they were—there were few women among them—and from what backgrounds they emerged. Small liberal arts colleges in the Middle West and on the Pacific coast, one study found, were most productive of scientists then (by contrast, New England in the same period excelled at the manufacture of lawyers). ... Theoretical physicists averaged the highest verbal IQs among all scientists studied, clustering around 170, almost 20 percent higher than the experimentalists. Theoreticians also averaged the highest spatial IQs, experimentalists ranking second.

tomjakubowski 1y ago
I'd think strong verbal skills would make for better collaboration between scientists.
jp57 1y ago
In order to solve what are essentially "word problems" -- i.e. reading a verbal description of a problem and translating it to math -- you have to have very good reading comprehension.
Qem 1y ago
Perhaps survivorship bias explain part of it. Many of those scientists arrived at US fleeing their home countries in WWII. Migrating under those circumstances is tricky, lacking the necessary support network or failing to successfully negotiate an encounter with border patrol may be the difference between reaching a safe place and being dragged to rot in the trenches. Good verbal intelligence is very helpful in this process. Perhaps the same way good verbal intelligence is over-represented in those who escaped the war, the trait of being taciturn was over-represented in all the scientists that got stuck and died in WWII[1]. [1] https://worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0436#t=aboutBook https://worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0436#t=ab...

tomjakubowski 1y ago

I'd think strong verbal skills would make for better collaboration between scientists.

jp57 1y ago

In order to solve what are essentially "word problems" -- i.e. reading a verbal description of a problem and translating it to math -- you have to have very good reading comprehension.

Qem 1y ago

Perhaps survivorship bias explain part of it. Many of those scientists arrived at US fleeing their home countries in WWII. Migrating under those circumstances is tricky, lacking the necessary support network or failing to successfully negotiate an encounter with border patrol may be the difference between reaching a safe place and being dragged to rot in the trenches. Good verbal intelligence is very helpful in this process. Perhaps the same way good verbal intelligence is over-represented in those who escaped the war, the trait of being taciturn was over-represented in all the scientists that got stuck and died in WWII[1]. [1] https://worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0436#t=aboutBook https://worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0436#t=ab...