Genius Requires Just the Right Mix

An anonymous reader writes "LiveScience has an interesting piece taking a look at how genius is rarely developed in a vacuum. From the article: 'The reality is that behind many scientific geniuses, there is at least one other genius, and often a number of them.' It takes much more than a genius pal or predecessor, however, to do great science, according to Simmons. Scientific advances emerge from social, economic and political conditions."

Comments

Surrounding yourself with talent

[lukewarmfusion]

Really brilliant people (not just scientifically, but in any discipline or industry) surround themselves with other brilliant people. They enjoy being challenged by peers. They are secure in their abilities and know that other brilliant people will not threaten their place but help to elevate it.

I am finding, early in my business career, that working with other talented people makes me work harder and aspire to greater things. The constant challenges put a perspective on the obstacles I used to face - ones I now overcome easily.

I'm beginning to believe that "genius" is just a frame of mind.

Re:Surrounding yourself with talent

[catmistake]

Really brilliant people (not just scientifically, but in any discipline or industry) surround themselves with other brilliant people.

Actually... this is sort of a subset of another truth: you become the people with which you associate.

If you hang out with a bunch of drug abusing low-lifes, guess what? That's either what you are or what you are becoming. If you hang out with a bunch of very smart, technically oriented, socially inadept individuals, chances are you are a nerd.

Ironically, its not that you gravitate towards those of similar interest and mental capacities, necessarily, but more that circumstance has thrown you together with those that often times you must socially break free from (in order to find a more pregressive group) to advance yourself.

Re:Surrounding yourself with talent

[balster neb]

I agree, and what the article says is actually pretty obvious if you examine it.

If you look back a bit in history, there tend to be brief periods when there this an explosion of new ideas and concepts, and these periods are always associated with particular geniuses. For physics, you could argue that we've been in one long "genius period" since Newton or perhaps Galileo. For other sciences, there have been different periods.

This is not unique to sciences, but happens with all fields. Why, for instance did so many musical geniuses emerge in Europe during the second half of the 19th century? Was it the water supply? No, it was because at that point there were a whole bunch of new ideas in music emerging. But by some time in the early 20th century, most of these musical ideas had been explored by composers, which is why there were much fewer classical music geniuses in the later 20th century. Same goes with the other arts.

Essential for genius to emerge is correct circumstances. A potential genius has to be born at a time when there is great scope in a particular field. Geniuses of the past usually had no shortage of living role models while growing up. So while biology plays a factor, it is important to be born at the right place at the right time, and have the right exposure. That's also why we don't see geniuses emerge from far away, cut-off parts of the world. No genius can develop in an intellectual vacuum.

Re:Surrounding yourself with talent

[TheGSRGuy]

I sincerely hope you're kidding about squashing the less intelligent people. Nothing makes me feel worse than when someone I work with calls me an idiot in front of everyone else. When intellectuals start making everyone inferior, personal relations just go down the toilet. Surprised? No, because many so-called "geniuses" lack basic communications and interpersonal skills.

Re:Surrounding yourself with talent

[woobieman29]

I think that you can take this a bit farther as well, and state that current social and political values also will help to differentiate time periods in their ability to produce genius.

The dark ages are a prime example. Societies turned their backs on logic in favor of mysticism and people were afraid to pursue knowledge lest they be labeled as heretics. It took a lot of bravery in those times to stand up for any ideas that ran contrary to the religious beliefs of the day.

Unfortunately I fear that in the U.S. we are experiencing a rebirth of this social condition, albeit on a much smaller scale (for now, at least). The extreme religious right has waaayy more power than they should (IMHO) and it seems that more and more often faith trumps science and logic.

For true scientific innovation to flourish again in the U.S. we will need to gravitate back towards a society that is progress oriented.

Oh yeah, and it wouldn't hurt to have an administration that lets scientific findings stand on their own merit, without political edits.

Re:Surrounding yourself with talent

[linzeal]

It is not about bragging, it is not being afraid of being better than people around you, who at all levels of acadamia still have a little smugness towards brilliant people. I have seen it at r&d in OSU, caltech and ASU. If you are ahead of the curve in any field you will have people that will justify being an ass to you because they feel threatened or sidelined. Some people work their whole life for one Nature or Science article, some have dozens by the age of 40.

Re:Poor Filler

[caffeinemessiah]

Shame on you, throwing Kuhn references around like that! Kuhn's paradigm shifts, perhaps one of the worst uses of technical terms that penetrated '80s business ideology, are more in line with the biological idea of punctuated equilibria applied to intellectualism. Things cruise along for a little while, ho-hum, until the intellectual climate changes and then science truly progresses. There are similar analogies in a myriad other fields.

However, I think all the article was talking about was really clever people who are secure and confident about their knowledge. People tend to equate "genius" with "will discover something to change the world any day now", but geniuses might simply offer a fresh view or point out something that no one has noticed before on a day to day basis. In other words, think smaller than Kuhn!

And I completely agree with you, science definitely doesn't have a monopoly on geniuses. But from a very early age, no matter where we grow up, we tend to be exposed to the stereotype of the mad scientist and the odd poster of Einstein. How many 8th graders know what relativity is in really simple terms, rather than Einstein "was a really smart scientist".

Re: Hmm..

[Black Parrot]

> So if it takes more than one genius to produce another genius, does that mean we could be looking at a genius shortage in the future?

It takes more than one stray cat to make a stray kitten, and yet we don't seem to have any shortage.

Shoulders of Giants

[everphilski]

No, I enjoy squashing them. As if a genius can have a "peer". True genius has no equal, and quite simply cannot have peers. In other words, true geniuses don't need to be around other people to convince themselves that they are "smart": they KNOW that they are smart.

Not sure what qualifies you as a genious. Anyways your approach of "squashing" will not get you far in the real world. Most geniouses will acknowlege they were not the first, nor the last. Perhaps you are familiar with the phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants"?

Re:well yeah

[Bongo Bill]

I'm inclined to believe that a genius is a person who can do well on an arbitrary test of "mental parlor tricks" and excel in real-life applications of intelligence.

Not everybody who does well on an IQ test is a genius, but everybody who does not do well on an IQ test is not a genius.

Similar to Howard Becker's work

[pbooktebo]

The sociologist Howard Becker has written extensively, most clearly in his book "Art Worlds," that to understand creation the locus should be the entire world of the artist, not the artist. We're making a mistake if we try to understand Beethoven's 9th without reference to the culture of Vienna, the rising role of the publishing house, the people who let him live the unfettered (if tortured) life of a creative artist, all play a role alongside the musicians, the promoters, his students, and composers who preceeded him and worked alongside him. That Viennese world, with Beethoven in it, Becker would argue, is the actual producer of the work.

The same holds true for science and other creative endeavors. It's not an airtight thesis, by any means, but it is provocative and gets people thinking along different lines than the unitary individual acting alone as we are so prone to do in the West...

Re:Right

[TubeSteak]

I coulda sworn that "Genius" meant you had a certain level of intelligence.

Check this site out for a breakdown of IQ
http://www.wilderdom.com/intelligence/IQWhatScores Mean.html

• 50% of IQ scores fall between 90 and 110
  
• 70% of IQ scores fall between 85 and 115
  
• 95% of IQ scores fall between 70 and 130
  
• 99.5% of IQ scores fall between 60 and 140

Genius is generally considered to be above 145.

The difference between "someone who excels at a subject" and someone who is a "genius" is that a genius may be able to excel at (m)any subjects.

The smarter you are, the greater your ability to comprehend, understand, analyze, etc. Raw intelligence will generally trump training.

The Rand Corp recently released a study involving soldiers, fresh out of advanced individual training courses. They told them to troubleshoot faulty communications gear. The smart ones had a 97% success rate. The dumbest... 25% of them managed to find the two problems.

http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_22323. shtml

The fact that you don't know what a genius is, tends to suggest that you aren't one. Most people will know genius when they see it.

Agree

[UndyingShadow]

One of biggest problems a "genius thinker" often faces is his own intelligence. He is on a much higher level and being surrounded by "normal people" often leaves him unchallenged, he doesn't have to work at anything, and then his discontent could squash the ideas right out of him. But as soon as you put him in a room with another on his level, he will quickly find himself challenged, and will respond with genius, as will his counterpart, leading to truly amazing things. As a general rule, I've found that people don't excel unless they have a reason to. 99% of the time, its competition

Counterexample.

[ezzzD55J]

Ramanujan is one of the biggest mathematical geniuses ever, and taught himself these things in a vacuum.