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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."
Don't you think that after fighting for the attention of women, the "scientist" would go ahead and concentrate on other stuff: his scientific career? You know with one thing out of the way, even lesser mortals like us pay attention to other issues.
Just a thought. I wonder what happens to women scientists when they get married!
All this study shows is that marriage is associated with a decline in scientific productivity, not that it's the cause. The causation could easily work the other way: once scientists are done making their major contributions, they're more likely to settle down, get married, and focus on family life.
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Madam Curie is also another exception to this rule. She and her husband both made significant contributions to science after they were married.
I think it depends on who you marry mostly - in Madam Curie's case - her husband Pierre was a helpmate. And anyways - the article states that most scientists drop out at 30 or after 5 years (of marriage). Well - if most people get married about 24 (assumming Geeks marry late) or so - 5 years later they're 30.
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
This isn't the geniuses' fault; the problem is that there just aren't enough decent women to go around, so people have to take what they can get. So all the people you know, who you claim to be morons, are really just not lucky enough to find someone who enhances their life (at least the creative part of it), and are stuck with someone who saddles them with other crap.
If our society raised women better, so that they'd pick better partners (not the asshole/badboy type), not become single mothers in their youth, get a good education, go into intellectual fields, not be whiny bitches, etc., then maybe we wouldn't have this problem and more of these genius men could find suitable companions.
One thing I've noticed over the years: Women want a man to BE successful, but they often don't want to be married to a man who's doing the necessary work to become successful.
(There's a similar thing with cars: If you're single, having a cool sports-car will help you attract women. Once you've married, she'll want you to trade it in for something more 'practical'.)
Well, they say Mediocrity borrows while Genius steals, so maybe the two are more closely related than ya think...
On the other hand, people talk about Hemingway having one good book for each wife... so if you're a genius and worried, you can still be a serial polygamist.