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Hawking Searching For Africa's Einsteins
nuke-alwin writes "Stephen Hawking has traveled to South Africa in search of Africa's Einsteins. The project will create Africa's first post-graduate center for math and physics. The British government has unfortunately decided not to back the project, which is hoping to fight poverty by identifying the kind of talent that can create wealth." Neil Turok is deeply involved as well; he was recently named to head the Perimeter Institute in Canada, whose server we brought to its knees this morning.
So, if these math geniuses get a degree there, whats to keep them from just moving out of country? Nothing? Honestly, if I were born in an absolutely impoverished country, and ended up being a genius and getting a graduate degree in mathematics, I'm sure I'd hop on the first chance at a big corporate job in some other country.
Where did Einstein do his post-graduate work?
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
Not to go off on a tangent, but I wouldn't call Watson the "co-discovererer of DNA," for two reasons.
1. My understanding of research history was that DNA was discovered long before, and also long before was identified as the genetic material.
2. He likely didn't even co-discover the STRUCTURE of DNA so much as steal credit for that from Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling.
Some of us prize knowledgs and wisdom far more than money. Not everyone worships at the alter af mammon.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I doubt he will find much because it is such an undernourished and politically unstable place on the whole. You likely need a large population of relatively healthy people in order to produce sufficient geniuses. Poorly-fed brains with too few toys are not likely to end up at the top. Einstein traced his thought process back to a compass that his dad gave him.
If only say 10 percent of Africa's population fits that bill, then you'd get about 10% of the hits compared to a similar population of mostly middle-class countries. This is not being racist, but merely observing the health of Africa's population as it is.
Table-ized A.I.
Race has nothing to do with it. Look at yourself; dumb as a box of rocks.
Put any kid of any race (say, your kid) in a third world country with little food, no medical care, and have unlearned people raise him, and don't send him to school, and he'll be just like the native Africans.
Take one of those African kids and raise him in an enlightened industrial society and he'll excel as much as anyone. It isn't about self esteem, it's about quality of life.
As to your own stupidity, racism is a tool of the rich to keep everyone else at each others' throats so they won't notice who's really using and abusing them, tool.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Not quite sure why people assume all of the Africa is starving or lacks critical infrastructure. Take a look at the pictures on the wikipedia entry for Johannesburg, for comparison sake. There are definitely places in Africa where physicists, engineers and scientists of all types can, and are, earning a decent living.
Yes, 150 year old physics. Certainly no one needs to worry about 11 dimensional strings when building a fucking toilet. Use your noodle.
I don't even know where to begin, but here are some counterexamples of theoretical physics being quite practical: nuclear fission reactors, fusion weapons, transistors/microchips, computers, internet, TVs, sattelites/GPS, cell phones and wireless comms, MRI and PET scans, electron microscopy, LASERs...
See, I think you are making the same mistake of underestimating theoretical physics as the Germans did in the 1930s...
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Look, I'm all for helping Africa get great colleges and postgrad institutions. It's a good thing, and certainly can't hurt. But if these people think that a postgrad center for math and physics is going to help pump great wealth into Africa, I'm afraid they'll be dissapointed. They'd be better off building business and engineering institutes. People like Patrice Motsepe will do far more to bring wealth to Africa than someone like Hawking.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
It is kind of like trying to cure a broken leg with antibiotics. You might need the antibiotics but you'd really better get a splint on there first.
I.e. start by identifying the **real** root cause and work on that.
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
I leave the obvious conclusion as an exercise for the reader.
So you [I assume you by the tone of your post] oppress and exploit a certain group of society for a century and are surprised what happens when the lid finally gets blown off?
Stick Men
sooo, British physicists should go to Africa and teach farming? .... or just stay put and shut up?
We can all contribute with our own skills.
The idea here is not to create an economic effect. That is secondary.
The point of the project is to find and empower the brilliant potential mathematicians and physicists in this poorly served region. The purpose of finding and empowering these people is to empower the human race and to advance our knowledge and understanding of the universe.
I agree that Mugabe and the like need to go, and so do the voters in Zimbabwe, but I don't know that population control is necessary. There are population issues in China and India, as well, and they manage to avoid the same sort of hell that a lot of Africa is in.
Education, infrastructure, and Mugabe hanging by his feet like a piñata would be a good start.
Something like: "Theoretical physicists turn money into ideas. Engineers turn ideas into money."
If a black man did something horrible to you or your family, you have my sympathies.
A member of my family was beaten to death by a black man in the street. It happened before I was born. Routine mugging gone awry. She spent the rest of her "life" in pain and a vegetative state. It was the woman who raised my mother.
I don't blame race. I blame human nature. Most people of any color are just vicious animals running on fear and greed and desperation.
But I like to think -- or, I hope -- that I am a man and not a beast. And I believe that to be this I need, constantly, to overcome the paranoia that would make me a fearful animal and not a man. I believe abject racism is just one more form of animal paranoia.
I do not believe in a utopia where race does not matter. I learned that again in college, and it was my saddest lesson. You see, racist Chinese people say the same things about white men that you say about blacks -- that they (we) are fetishists, perverts, rapists, deviants, and worse. I learned this the hard way when, for six months, I dated a nice and good-looking girl from Shanghai. People said nasty things, whispered snide comments -- particularly two kinds of people: (1) uneducated whites, and (2) racist Chinese people. My mind's eye saw the caricature of the racist white man -- sitting on his front porch, spitting tobacco, and saying, "Watch out! Them watermelon-eating niggers take our women!" morphing into a Chinese student who was pointing at me, and the "nigger" becoming a stereotyped "Westerner" with my face. She was a nice girl, and though we did not have enough in common to continue the relationship -- our value systems were moving rapidly apart, and it became more and more clear that we, in basic philosophy, wanted very different things -- we certainly did not deserve the kind of comments we received. It was insulting to me and dehumanizing to her: The assumption by her "own people" seemed to be that she could not possibly be appealing as a human being, that the only reason anyone could want to date her was that he were sick, that he were some kind of twisted pervert and that the only appealing quality she could possibly have was the ethnicity she happened to come from. She had warned me when we started that people would say these things, and I had replied naively that it didn't matter, but I guess in fact I had really thought it wouldn't happen enough that it could matter. I had to learn the hard way that this wasn't true. It was severely disillusioning.
I do not want to be like those people who spoke insults and acid. I do not believe in utopia, but I reject their petty tribalism, and I am a better man than they were.
Are you? Are you a better man? A thinking, reasoning being with thoughts as well as instincts? Or are you a beast yourself?
I'm not asking you to change your mind immediately. I'm not telling you to discard what you think just because people call it "racism:" having a name for an idea and saying "it's bad" doesn't by itself mean it's wrong. I'm just asking you to moderate your thoughts for a bit, to let the man overcome the beast. Because I think -- or hope -- that in time and with thoughtfulness, you will conclude differently than you do now -- and I don't think bitterness is a very good route to peace for society, or to happiness for yourself.
Cheers.
Is there a gene for intelligence? I don't know. But it's beyond ludicrous to suggest that a gene for intelligence has anything to do with the genes for skin color. Any attempt to justify your brand of racism through genetics has fallen flat on its face.
South Africa is a developing country - and I mean developing as in development is taking place, not as in third world backwards etc. There is a lot of well paying work here for people with maths and science. Engineers are also in short supply. A bright African student, with otherwise no hope of advancing his education in maths/science, will jump at an opportunity to attend a local center of excellence, get an education, and apply for one of these jobs. And not everyone is aiming for the Einstein level of excellence when it comes to scientific career - many people (most, in fact), would settle for a secure, well paying, satisfying job.
Jeeze, you made me laugh! "..severely lacking in agriculture?". Very good one.
South Africa doesn't need agriculture (if you're in Europe, go to the local fruit store and count the number of fruit imported from SA. Here's a hint to find them - they're usually the biggest, best ones). The infrastructure is here. We need skills to enable us to grow the economy. Skills like maths and science - corporations here pay good money for scientific skills, in quality of life terms probably better than Europe and the USA. You may argue that you were talking about the rest of Africa - fact is, economic growth has to start from somewhere.
I was born and lived in Johannesburg all my life. We don't need international researchers (they are welcome, of course) - we need local people with skills that can be applied to grow the economy. And there is plenty of work here for mathematicians and physicists (and engineers, and software developers). The infrastructure in SA is well developed, we need skilled people to grow it. The crime problem still exists, but I honestly think calling JHB the most dangerous city in the world is a bit excessive. I have seen more street muggings in Paris than in the streets here.
You're making the age old mistake of assuming that genetic diversity somehow precludes common traits arrising - such as similar skin colour, nose shape, hair type - whenb clearly it doesnt. Ergo theres no reason to presume it would preclude a lower average IQ than other areas in the world.
Btw , calling someone racist simply because you don't happen to like their views that different races may be different is pathetically childish, though standard tactics for people of the right-on persuation.
Wealth has never been created by geniuses per se. Unless they have two other elements that need to exist. Extreme motivation, and the opportunity for capitalism. Most of Africa is controlled by socialist / communist governments, and never in the history of the world has socialism built and promoted wealth. The countries with the most freedoms, owning property, basic human rights, etc. are the wealthiest nations. Don't give me "China" either. Per capita they are a third world country. The government controls who has the wealth, and only if it benefits the "state". If Hawking wants to promote the creation of wealth in Africa, he should be there promoting freedom. Worked for us over 200 yrs ago.
Einstein was a Jew. Jews have a natural tendency towards high IQ due to environmental variables that encouraged endogamy and a culture that highly prized intellectual and educational achievement. Africans, unfortunately, are not known for high IQs, and the environmental variables that would give rise to high IQs are not in place. It would take thousands of years of natural eugenics, as with Jews, to create an outcome where an African Einstein is within the realm of possibility. You cannot take a person and mold them into something else by tossing them into a school. You cannot rewire their brains to such an extent. It would be better to simply seek out the most intelligent Africans you can find, and see how far they can go, without burdening them with a near impossible goal for anyone, of any race.
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