Slashdot Mirror
Marriage May Tame Genius
theodp writes "Here's one to share with the wife and kids. Using a database of the biographies of 280 great scientists, a psychologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand has concluded that creative genius is turned off almost like a tap if a man gets married and has children, regardless of age."
And crime. The linked article says this happens to genus and crime in young men. Why leave that off the article? Only 10% of Slashdot readers ever read the articles, so leaving that key piece of information off is a little irresponsible, since we know the reader's habits now.
Of course, I don't know why the average Slashdot reader would need to know either fact.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
It did not take long to come up with a glaring exception: a man recognized as one of the top few composers of all time:
"Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was the most prolific of the great composers. In his 65 years he produced 1,200 musical works and 20 children. You can find his compositions listed in an encyclopedia."
(For the mathematically minded, that's 60 musical works per child. Isn't P.D.Q. #21 ?)
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I've never even *thought* of getting married. I've never been in a long-term relationship. I haven't been in even a semi-serious relationship (over three weeks long) for three years. I haven't had sex for over a year, and I haven't been on a date in almost seven months.
:)
I must be one of the smartest people on Earth
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But to be honest I think that if you find yourself in a loving relationship that withstands the test of time, and you have the insight to realise that the ultimate creative activity is raising a child anyway, choosing a life of solitude to work on a physics problem or write an operating system is pathetic.
Remember, Linus has a wife and kids. Even he knows where it's at.
It says that Einstein was married in 1903. Then in 1905, he published three papers, including his most famous one on the theory of relativity. So, the authors of the article used a quote from a man whose life contradicts the theory!
Stephen Hawking? Hard to top his mind among living scientists. 3 children for him.
Einstein? Two sons there.
Frank Lloyd Wright? World's greatest architect (he said so himself, and not many argue with it). 6 children (or was it 7?)
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Leonhard Euler was married and had fourteen children. He was also stone blind for the last 17 years of his life. Despite this he made tremendous and lasting contributions to the field of mathematics.
One biography says of him:
"He was blind for the last 17 years of his life, and during that time his mathematical productivity actually increased. It was said that Euler had tremendous powers of concentration and that he was even able to do mathematics 'with a baby in his lap while the older children played all about him.'"
If the trend is that people become less creative after they marry, it is likely due to a lack of time rather than any suppresion of the creative instinct.
If the study had concentrated on people for whom creativity was essential to their livelihood I doubt there'd be a correlation between creativity and being married. Many artists and writers are married and still turn out works of genius. Some don't even become famous for their works until long after they're married, for example J.K. Rowlings (a woman, I know, and whether or not you like Harry Potter it is a great work), and Stephen King(one of the most prolific writers of our time).
When you do all those things and shower.
If intellectualism were a draw for women, there wouldn't be all these stereotypes about geeks not getting laid.
The reason why geeks don't get laid are simple to understand:
Just because someone is intellectual, does not make them a geek. Many of the stupidest people I know call themselves geeks.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
To answer your question, no I wasn't dumped for a biker. I was just making a general observation of women.
:)
As for bars, sorry, there really aren't many other ways of meeting people in this society. If you don't like hanging out in bars, you're just outta luck. (I don't like hanging out in bars either, which is why I can't get a date.)
For some reason, though, when I tell this to other people, and I ask them what these other ways of meeting women are, they always give me the stupidest answers. I'll list some of the common ones:
1) Meet someone at church.
- sorry, I don't believe in fairy tales, and would not be too interested in someone whose life centers around them. Plus, church women are too conservative to be good in bed
2) Meet someone in public places, like the grocery store.
- I've been shopping for groceries for myself for at least a decade now, and I've never met anyone at a grocery store. No one goes to grocery stores to meet people, and they ignore anyone who's there. Plus, they're mainly populated by families with kids.
3) Get a dog and meet a girl while walking it.
- (this one was just suggested to me a few days ago in case you're wondering). You've got to be kidding.
4) Meet a girl online.
- I've been trying this for 2 years. I've met some, but they never turn out to be LTR material. One date and that's the end of it. The huge ratio of guys-to-girls seems to be a big problem here.
5) Become a drinker and meet a girl at a bar or club; if you don't drink, then that shows you don't know how to relax and have fun.
- I was just told this a couple days ago by a girl.
6) Meet a girl at a pary.
- This seems to be the most promising idea. Though again I'm not sure how far it'd go since parties seem to attract people who like to get really drunk, but they're better than bars since they only have other 20/30-something people like myself.
What annoys me is that, when I was in college, there were all these attractive, intelligent women going into promising careers. Now that I'm in the working world, where are they??? Now everyone who's still single either has kids, smokes, is in some stupid job/has no education, is fat and ugly.
No, species follows genus, as the grandparent humorous post suggested.
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
("King Phillip Crossed Over From Grant Street" is the usual mnemonic).
Incidentally, Newton was a celibate. Amazing what a man can achieve when he takes his mind off sex, and unfortunately he's the model of a true geek: forever single. :(
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