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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."
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.
Browse /. at -1 and notice how stupidity doesn't develop in a vacuum either. Behind every "-1 Offtopic" comment, there are dozens of other equally irrelevant, nonsensical rants. One "Stephen King is Dead" post always leads to more, and penis bird lives on.
Human cognition has been described by some researchers as unique in that it is the result of many years of cumulated cultural evolution. We think in symbols that have developed over time. In that sense, all of us can be said to "stand on the shoulders of giants."
Certain environments (cultural, social, intellectual, environments) are ripe for a certain key innovation. It is up to individual researchers to make that development, but of course it wouldn't be possible without the work of others before them. This is even more evident when we look at scenarios in which several researchers develop the same innovation at almost precisely the same time.
Of course, drawing the conclusion that "geniuses are just like the rest of us" is totally of base. Some individuals are most assuredly better than others at innovating and developing our knowledge. In fact, I would submit that the majority of humans take the role of "imitator" not innovator. Innovators have to be rare, and imitators prevalent, in order for cumulative cultural evolution to work; lots of people need to preserve our knowledge -you can't have everyone thinking differently and innovating.
Further to this, I would like to add that the sort of genius that makes an "Einstein" is not necessarily just "being smart", whatever that means, but thinking differently than the rest of us -just being weird. A low amount of weird individuals in a social group will allow that group to explore new possibilities safely.
There's a very long string of famous mathematicians that associated with each other (not necessarily directly, but they are all connected on a relatively small graph), beginning with Leibniz and ending with Dirichlet. It includes Bernoulli, Euler, Lagrange, Fourier, and Poisson, as well as the aforementioned two.
So yes, I'd be inclined to agree.
From the article:
"The scientific genius who grew up in grinding poverty is an exceedingly rare bird," he said. "If it seems there was a great flowering of scientific genius out of Eastern Europe beginning in the late nineteenth century, it was due in large part to a developing middle class, a stable family life, and secular opportunities for both men and women."
So, less povery will produce more geniuses. I think that's a really good argument for creating a stronger social safety net.
Vizzini: I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains.
Westley: You're that smart?
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Westley: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons.
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> 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.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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"?
I don't agree with the assertions of the author. I know it is in vogue to believe it's a special relationship between events, people, etc., that makes a genius, but I don't agree. You are or you aren't. Whether the genius' contributions are recognized, whether the genius finds an appropriate subject in which to expend his creative energy, these are the questions.
The article goes on to discuss how Einstein had all the benefits of other great physicists. But wait, he dropped out of high school, barely made it into college, and couldn't even find a job. He taught himself calculus, and developed special relativity on his own.
History is rife with examples of genius forgotten, and who knows how much is lost. The Fourier Transform was rejected by the Academy of Sciences of Paris, yet look at the applications today, from digital image processing, communications theory, and the profound impact it had on the revolutionary idea of function. Consider others, such as Fermat, a great mathematician, for whom math was only a hobby. This extends to other things like music. Bach, little known in his own time, and completely forgotten until he was discovered by Mendelssohn, is now considered by many to be the greatest composer of all time.
No, I think that people who like to say there is no Genius, only environment, are merely mediocre thinkers, socialists, and those who would rob the wonderful talent of the great contributers of our world. The goal? To diminish individual contribution and aggrandize socialism.
The real question we ought to be asking, is given there are as many people alive today as ever, why don't we have 10000 geniuses making enormous progress in the sciences, when largely we hear about questionable things like "cold fusion," and the like.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
PHB: A good manager is someone who hires people who are smarter than he is.
Wally: So... your boss is dumber than you?
Alice: And you boss's boss is dumber yet?
Dilbert: According to your theory, our CEO is the dumbest person in the company.
Wally: Unless all of you are bad managers.
Asok: Truly we are doomed either way.
PHB: This concludes the motivational part of the meeting.
Wally: I'd give you a high five but I don't like to move.
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
Ramanujan is one of the biggest mathematical geniuses ever, and taught himself these things in a vacuum.
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Olympic medals per capita, all time:
#1 Finland
#2 Sweden
#3 Hungary
#4 Denmark
#5 Norway
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the US comes in at place 28 of 116. And as for gold medals, well, there are no total statistics on the site, but for Sydney, gold medals per capita put the US at place 31 of 48. And so on. It's pretty standard knowledge that the US does very badly in the Olympics for a country of that size. It only does well in the absolute number of medals because of its, well, absolute size, which gives it a massive pool of talented people and a lot will succeed regardless of how inferior their training/financial environment is to rich world standards.
(BTW, part of the reason why Finland is leading the all time per capita stats is that in the early 20th century Finns *were* often written off in Western Europe/America as racially inferior and there was a huge national push to succeed in sports to defeat that image...)