Probe of Einstein's Brain Reveals Clues To His Genius

sciencehabit writes "Smart, successful, and well-connected: a good description of Albert Einstein and his brain. The father of relativity theory didn't live to see modern brain imaging techniques, but after his death his brain was sliced into sections and photographed. Now, scientists have used those cross-sectional photos to reveal a larger-than-average corpus callosum — the bundle of nerve fibers connecting the brain's two hemispheres. The thickness of Einstein's corpus callosum was greater than the average, and more nerve fibers connected key regions such as the two sides of the prefrontal cortex, which are responsible for complex thought and decision-making. Combined with previous evidence that parts of the physicist's brain were unusually large and intricately folded, the researchers suggest that this feature helps account for his extraordinary gifts." Abstract (full article is paywalled) at the journal Brain.

Comments

Hiring and admission decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pretty cool. Perhaps we could use these results to find a way to use brains scans to make better decisions about University admission or hiring for technical positions. Obviously the bit about slicing the brain into sections won't be an option.

This would have to be just one part of the decision process however. Thomas Edison's quote, "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration" comes to mind.

Re:Hiring and admission decisions

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Obviously the bit about slicing the brain into sections won't be an option.

Why? That's the whole point of "tomo-" in tomography.

Re: Hiring and admission decisions

[jd2112]

Just replace it with an electronic one. A simple one should suffice. it just needs to be progrsmmed to say "what?" and "where's the tea?"

Re:Hiring and admission decisions

[shaitand]

Thomas Edison was no genius, he just hired a bunch of smart people. Do not confuse an Edison or a Ford with Tesla or an Einstein. Ford and Edison were normal people with lots of resources who were very successful at getting people to produce results. People like Tesla and Einstein are geniuses.

Re: Hiring and admission decisions

[rolfwind]

Basically Steve Jobs vs Steve Wozniak. Yet I would argue true geniuses need the support structure the Steve Jobs/Edisons/etc can provide to realize their potential.

I'll note that Einstein was against donating his brain to science, so we're still violating this man's wishes, unfortunately.

Re: Hiring and admission decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

What?!

Re:Hiring and admission decisions

[ShanghaiBill]

Ford and Edison were normal people with lots of resources ...

Neither Ford nor Edison were born rich. Both endured hardship. The "lots of resources" came from their early individual successes.

... who were very successful at getting people to produce results.

Except that "normal" people are rarely successful at that.

Re: Hiring and admission decisions

[Crazy Taco]

Yet I would argue true geniuses need the support structure the Steve Jobs/Edisons/etc can provide to realize their potential.

I think this is right on, but it extends much farther than just "true geniuses". Personally, I'm one of those highly technical people who are really good at the nitty gritty details of making technology work, but as I've learned more about myself over the years I've realized that I need to make sure I stay in the technical arena, rather than going into management or some of the purely "visionary" roles, because the high level of technical talent I have doesn't mean I have a commensurately high level of visionary talent. I've learned that a good idea for me is to seek out the visionary types in my organization and try to get myself onto their projects, because they can supply overall direction and I can provide a really good technical implementation. I'm not trying to compare myself to Woz, Einstein, Tesla, or these other geniuses, because I'm not nearly that smart, but I do think the principle extends to me an many others. There is an almost symbiotic relationship that can be had when technical people realize they need visionaries, and visionaries respect and treat the technical people well. I think it applies to much of industry, not just super geniuses and super visionaries.

Re:Hiring and admission decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

wrong, while Edison did hire a bunch of smart people but did some fascinating things himself. research his life sometime before believing and repeating urban legend

Re:Hiring and admission decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

Ford and Edison were normal people with lots of resources ...

Neither Ford nor Edison were born rich. Both endured hardship. The "lots of resources" came from their early individual successes.

... who were very successful at getting people to produce results.

Except that "normal" people are rarely successful at that.

Well, normal people stop when they are not successful.

Re:Hiring and admission decisions

[smithmc]

You don't think there's a kind of genius in what Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison or Henry Ford did? If they were "just normal people", then why aren't we all billionaires like them?

Re:Hiring and admission decisions

[LifesABeach]

I think the job interview in the movie "Gattaca" is what you're invisioning?

Re: Hiring and admission decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

The entity that used to be "that man" no longer exists, therefore there is no "this man". A corpse is a corpse. It's best use is to benefit those who remain alive. If you have some peculiarity of interest to the medical profession, let them dissect your body. When they are done, or if you were not of interest, let your flesh be sold as meat. If others are squeamish of eating your flesh after your life is over, let yourself be buried at sea, where your body will feed the fish. Anything else is a waste of limited and valuable resources.

Re:Hiring and admission decisions

[shaitand]

I said they were normal not average. Billionaires are a lot more common than people like Tesla and Einstein. Being a billionaire requires the same kind of genius that being a mob boss has, ruthlessness, lack of conscious when it come to exploiting others, and persistence.

Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

If Einstein were alive, he would have told you, as he told them when he was still alive -- he wasn't particularly intelligent, only passionately curious. That's paraphrasing a direct quote. He probably would have also told you to stand outside utterly fascinating by water drops falling out of a fountain instead of going to accept your award for being so smart, and run around town in your loafers not giving a fuck what anyone else thought of you.

Maybe it's not intelligence per-se that we need to encourage, but non-conformity and the ability to embrace new ideas without pre-judgement.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

A little over a hundred years ago, people thought that humans could never fly because science proved it with the knowledge of the era. And yet when people work on so-called "perpetual motion" machines, they're called idiots just because our current understand of physics says it's not possible. And when you ask a scientist to explain gravity, all he can offer is a formula to calculate its value because all the current theories can't quite explain gravity itself and even those who try see their theories destroyed at smaller scales.

While your comment is massively off-topic, it hits on a topic near and dear to my heart, and it pains me greatly to see anyone misunderstand how science works, even an anonymous internet punter.

1. This is technically a true statement. Humans still cannot fly. We stuff ourselves in giant metal cans with wings on them, and the machines fly. We just sit inside them, continuing to stubbornly obey basic biology.

But I get your point. I notice you said "people thought," not "scientists thought". As far back as roman-greek times, people were dreaming about flying. Davinci was inking flying machine after flying machine. People who were studied in science never claimed it was impossible because they regularly observed birds flying. They knew they simply lacked sufficient understanding to do it, and set to the business of gaining that understanding.

2. Perpetual motion is idiotic; There has never been a case of it being observed. I'll explain in a minute just why scientists consider these people abject morons.

3. When you ask a scientist to explain gravity, he explains it on the basis of observation; Drop an apple, and it hits the ground. We can measure it very precisely. We have a great many theories that have allowed additional experiments to be carried out to observe it in more detail. The fact that it cannot be explained at the very tiny scale of quantum mechanics is not proof the theories are broken, but rather that some crucial observation is missing to tie it all together.

4. On the issue of scale, if I took your car engine and shrunk it to about 1/5th scale, it wouldn't run anymore, despite being exactly correct in every proportion. It's been long-understood that various physical forces only balance each other out at certain points and times. You can't create nuclear fission, for example, until you've gotten enough fissile material in the same place and close enough together. You can't just scale down beyond a certain point -- the machine will fail to function. This isn't a problem with "can't quite explain gravity", but rather a misunderstanding of fundamental physical laws.

When I see people write things like you just did, it makes me sad. Science is about empirical observation. It is the essence, the core, upon which everything else is built. You do not have to understand something to have it become scientific knowledge -- that's just extra. If you can observe something happening repeatedly and explain to others how to observe the same thing, and consistently get the same result, then you have science. Note that I didn't mention a theory, or an understanding, about what is being observed. All I mentioned were the elements of independent observation and the ability to reproduce the results. Understanding only comes in the context of research -- this is where we look at other observations and try to find similarities and common themes and patterns, that might allow us to construct a theory to explain what's going on. And theories can, indeed must, change whenever we find new observations that contradict it. But this is not instantanious. Observation does not automatically lead to theory.

We must experience first, then understand. It has always been this way. This is not science; This is life.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Wraithlyn]

Probably this one?

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” - Albert Einstein.

But you know, his subjectively modest opinion of his own relative intelligence, doesn't disprove that his brain had unusual features which may have provided certain advantages. Saying "anybody who works hard and has a good sense of curiosity has the potential to be an Einstein" is a nice thought, but that doesn't actually make it true.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

A little over a hundred years ago, people thought that humans could never fly because science proved it with the knowledge of the era.

And yet when people work on so-called "perpetual motion" machines, they're called idiots just because our current understand of physics says it's not possible. And when you ask a scientist to explain gravity, all he can offer is a formula to calculate its value because all the current theories can't quite explain gravity itself and even those who try see their theories destroyed at smaller scales.

And don't even get me started on fuckin' magnets...

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Daniel Dvorkin]

If Einstein were alive, he would have told you, as he told them when he was still alive -- he wasn't particularly intelligent, only passionately curious.

Curiosity is necessary for a great scientist (or even a not-so-great one) but it's not sufficient. Along with his brilliant statements about the nature of the universe, Einstein said a lot of goofy things, and this is one of them. His passionate curiosity combined with his intelligence is why he's still pretty much the canonical image of the scientist today. I guarantee you there are many, many people who are just as curious about the world as he was, and very few of them will be remembered.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Samantha Wright]

Tsk. Curiosity generates intelligence. There are other ways, of course (meeting parents' expectations, in particular), but they're not as reliable or resilient. I would argue that the developedness of Einstein's corpus callosum (which does seem to be a congenital trait) simply meant that he was better able to benefit from his curiosity and to be more satisfied and captivated by its fruits.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

Curiosity is necessary for a great scientist (or even a not-so-great one) but it's not sufficient.

No, sorry, but this is a fractally wrong statement to make. With sufficient curiousity, you will be dedicated to learning as much as you can. The drive to learn will push you where you need to go. Intelligence merely sets the speed by which you'll arrive. Your over-emphasis on intelligence is elitism; It's suggesting that if you can't be "smart enough", you shouldn't be in science.

I disagree. Firmly. Anyone can be a scientist. It is a method, a way of learning about the world. Almost every human being on the planet is capable of this. Even non-sentient animals have demonstrated an ability to use tools and experiment with their surroundings to gain understanding. If birds, wolves, monkeys, dolphins, and other animals can manage to do science, your argument of high general intelligence being necessary is totally and completely busted.

I stand by what I said before: You just need to be passionately curious. Even Einstein said as much, so if you want to argue the "you need to be smart too!" ... you're going up against someone who, by your own measure, is the smartest person to ever have lived. Good luck.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

What he may have meant was that he wasn't necessarily top 1 percent in the type of straight line thinking that characterizes the kind of student that gets a 4.0 GPA at CalTech or MIT, who can ace high-level math and physics courses after a once-though reading of the textbook.

But he had something much better.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

Tsk. Curiosity generates intelligence.

Citation needed. Please show me a study where someone who becomes curious about something becomes more intelligent. Conventional thinking right now is that intelligence is primarily genetic, and while it can be influenced by environment, it is largely fixed from birth. There are no cases I'm aware of where a person who was firmly tested and found to be of average or below average intelligence, by some later life experience, became a genius. This is real life, not Flowers for Algernon.

I would argue that [...] he was better able to benefit from his curiosity and to be more satisfied and captivated by its fruits.

Curiousity is a personality trait. Intelligence is an ability. You can be curious and stupid, or disinterested yet intelligent. One has no bearing on the other. The fact that he was curious and intelligent also is no proof that he was more satisfied by its fruits. A king losing his crown and a child losing her doll means the same to each. A person's level of emotional satisfaction has to do with past experience and temperament, rather than the abstract measure of impact the event had.

Now I know what you were trying to say here; But what you actually said is bogus. People who are intelligent generally are also more open-minded. Which means they're generally more curious, more prone to analytical thinking, and generally more likely to embrace science, etc. But this is true of groups; We can say nothing with confidence about any individual on the basis of having observed one of these two traits.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[platypusfriend]

So, then, no fact exists outside of science? If so, doesn't the fact that science requires observation and repeatability imply a weakness? Perhaps a factual, world-knowledge-altering event is witnessed by a lone observer (assume this person is known to be of sound scientific background), yet the observation is (perhaps by its nature) unrepeatable and unknowable to anyone else. The observer stands fast to their belief that the details of the witnessed event are now fact, but no one else in the scientific community believes it. So, the observation, however unscientific, remains fact to at least one observer. Were it to happen, what would you make of this experience? Does science allow for it? Would any newly-witnessed facts be true? False? Would there be a superposition of "fact" and "not fact" from some reference frame?

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

That isn't true at all. Perpetual motion is an innate property of the universe itself on many scales.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.

On the macro scale there is the constant expansions and contraction. All energy and particles are in a state of perpetual motion. The only reason anything ever appears to not be moving is because the scale you are focusing on is moving at a rate comparable or slower than the rate your energy is moving at on that scale.

No, it's because I understand the first and second laws of Thermodynamics. The fact that things are in motion does not change the fact that (a) energy can be neither created nor destroyed, and (b) the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium; which is to say... it stops moving. All that motion you're describing is part of an open system, not closed. And even it will eventually stop; See also -- heat death of the universe.

If your body and mind moved at the speed of rock the landscape would be bubbling (rock moves like a fluid, rising when heated, sinking when cool, and yes I'm referring to the 'solid' stuff) and erosion on a mountain might appear to be sand being blown off a dune. People might look like sparks or possibly move so fast as to not be observable.

Look, if you want to play games with optical illusions and relativistic effects, rock on with your socks on... but no physical laws are being broken here. Your perpetual motion machine... can't exist.

Now, if you have some proof that the laws of thermodynamics are broken, the second law in particular... please step forward and collect about 50 consecutive Nobel Prizes. Otherwise, you need to accept that perpetual motion machines... are a scientific impossibility. The end.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Daniel Dvorkin]

No, sorry, but this is a fractally wrong statement to make.

What do you mean by "fractally wrong"?

With sufficient curiousity, you will be dedicated to learning as much as you can. The drive to learn will push you where you need to go. Intelligence merely sets the speed by which you'll arrive.

True, but I'd argue that "mere" speed is pretty important. There are only so many hours in the day. A particular problem with modern science--bad enough in Einstein's day, worse now--is that there's a whole lot you have to learn before you can hope to make meaningful new contributions to any field. To refer back to an earlier famous scientist, standing on the shoulders of giants is great, but a lot of times you reach the shoulder of the giant only to realize that you're staring at the feet of the next giant. The climb will take you a long time even if you're very smart; if you're not, it may well take more than a lifetime to complete. Having just finished a PhD that took [mumble mumble] more years to complete than I expected at the outset, I'm acutely aware of this problem ...

Your over-emphasis on intelligence is elitism; It's suggesting that if you can't be "smart enough", you shouldn't be in science.

Hardly. No one really knows at the outset if they've got what it takes, and everyone who wants to do so should certainly give it a try. Even if they don't reach the top, they'll learn a lot along the way. But not everyone will reach the top, just as (mixing metaphors a bit) a whole lot of people who set out to climb the world's highest mountains don't succeed, and often die trying.

Anyone can be a scientist. It is a method, a way of learning about the world.

In that sense, sure--anyone can, and everyone should. But that's not the same thing as "doing science" the way Einstein did, making major discoveries that change the way we look at the world. Hell, it's not even the same thing as publishing a few highly cited articles, which is a fair accomplishment for any working scientist to aim for.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with your other points (particularly, Perpetual Motion really is idiotic), actually, Lord Kelvin, one of main scientists of his time, important enough to have a unit called after him (his title, not his name), said, as late as 1895, that heavier-than-air flight is impossible

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Kelvin.html

He wasn't alone among scientists by then.

Sure, flight wasn't forbiden by any laws of physics of his time (of course, many animals fly), unlike the perpetual motion thing, which is forbidden as much as then as it is now. This was just his, and many others scientists', opinion. Gladly succesful inventors usually knows the difference between these two situations.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing about perpetual motion. The very act of observing it implies an exchange of energy external to the supposed perpetual motion system.

"2. Perpetual motion is idiotic; There has never been a case of it being observed."

That isn't true at all. Perpetual motion is an innate property of the universe itself on many scales. On the macro scale there is the constant expansions and contraction. All energy and particles are in a state of perpetual motion. The only reason anything ever appears to not be moving is because the scale you are focusing on is moving at a rate comparable or slower than the rate your energy is moving at on that scale.

If your body and mind moved at the speed of rock the landscape would be bubbling (rock moves like a fluid, rising when heated, sinking when cool, and yes I'm referring to the 'solid' stuff) and erosion on a mountain might appear to be sand being blown off a dune. People might look like sparks or possibly move so fast as to not be observable.

Regarding the universe itself as a perpetual motion system, we assume that it is closed to external sources. We also note that things invariably change such that entropy is increased (overall) or at least stays the same. However, perpetual motion implies indefinite and never-ending, which is unfortunately not an assumption that we can make about the universe itself (in the absolute sense; it may be a safe bet). One theory regarding the future of the universe is that eventually no more work or exchange of energy will be possible as temperatures approach a uniform distribution and everything cools (look up "Big Freeze" or "Heat death of the universe"). In such a case, even the universe fails to be a perpetual motion machine.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

What do you mean by "fractally wrong"?

This.

True, but...

The end. There is no "but"; Either it's a correct statement, and you need to admit your original was mistaken and try again, or it's not, in which case no 'but' is required. All that using the word 'but' means is that your pride was hurt. While I sympathize, please stop using your busted argument.

No one really knows at the outset if they've got what it takes,

"Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge." -- Carl Sagan

No, people do know. It takes the ability to observe natural phenomenon, form conclusions based on that, then test them until you can get the same result multiple times. That's it. As I said before -- animals do this all the time. Not just people. So you don't need to climb mountains and risk death to be a scientist. Maybe you do to get paid, but science is something anyone can do.

But that's not the same thing as "doing science" the way Einstein did,

Are you saying you can't pick up a piece of chalk and write on a blackboard? That you can't stare into space having a good think on something? Are you suggesting you're incapable of looking with fascination at something happening around you and say "I think I would like to know more about that." Because that's what Einstein did, he just happened to do it particularly well.

Look, at this point you're arguing just for the sake of argument; Science is the light of reason. It is something available to all. You don't have to pay for it. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to put on a lab coat, or get a PhD, or climb mountains, or risk death. All you really need is to be observant and enough mental capacity to see how your own interactions with the environment change it. Everything on top of that is just extra.

There is no reason why we cannot all be scientists. I get that you wanna hero worship Einstein because you feel that your own intelligence should be rewarded and acknowledged, at least in some small measure, like his was. But drop the emotional neediness here and look at the big picture: The pursuit of science is its own reward. You don't need recognition or publication to benefit from your own pursuit of knowledge.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Huh. It's like you're having an argument with someone who made a post vaguely similar to mine. Well, have fun with that.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Belial6]

I'm pretty sure that as far as human understand goes, the universe is a closed system. Even if you go with one of the multi-verse theories, you are just working with a redefinition of universe, so change it to the multi-verse being a closed system, and you are back at a perpetual motion machine.

Basically, you have two options to explain the fact that the universe exists at all. 1) It is a big perpetual motion machine. 2) Magic. Option 2 is a far extraordinary claim than option 1.

I am all for the scientific method. I love science, and all of the glorious things it gives us. I do not in anyway believe in the supernatural. One thing I find frustrating is that most people who claim to trust science, even professional scientists at the highest levels, go all religious and supernatural as soon as they hit a subject that is outside of their understanding.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

Huh. It's like you're having an argument with someone who made a post vaguely similar to mine. Well, have fun with that.

Ah, the ad hominid with a side of snark. The time-tested way of letting everyone on the internet know you just went full retard.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[h4nk]

His ability to think abstractly with such precision, and to actually conceive almost unimaginably sophisticated concepts... that's a kind of genius that has to be marveled at. He didn't agree with Niels Bohr on Complementarity and he didn't fully buy into Hiesenburg's and Born's theories that flew in the face of causation. But it's not to say Einstein was wrong, he felt that the prevailing quantum theories were incomplete. But in a way, he was the Newton of his time, Although he contributed greatly to the early establishment of quantum theory, and later on helped establish ideas on locality and entanglement, he was dismayed by the seemingly nonsensical contradictions of duality. He helped to foster these concepts and hypothesis nonetheless. I believe that after developing special relativity, it was very jarring for him to consider a reality outside of Newtonian space and time. It is interesting to imagine what his thoughts on the nature of reality would be in 2013, even as we are proving much of his predictions on the nature of gravity and space-time.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[mcgrew]

If Einstein were alive, he would have told you, as he told them when he was still alive -- he wasn't particularly intelligent, only passionately curious.

How could one possibly be intelligent without being passionately curious?

run around town in your loafers not giving a fuck what anyone else thought of you.

Personally, I don't see giving a fuck what others think as a particularly intelligent trait. Not giving a fuck what people think has been beneficial to me. Followers give a fuck, creators seldom do.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Ah, the ad hominid with a side of snark. The time-tested way of letting everyone on the internet know you just went full retard.

Have you actually read your own posts in this thread?

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[mcgrew]

Tsk. Curiosity generates intelligence.

I think that, but I don't know that. You're a biologist, could you explain the biology behind that to us? I'd be very interested.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Computer analogies available for most topics! (Cars retired.)

It's like when you send your old server to the junkyard to be parted out ... ahhh, crap.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, he wouldn't tell you that after having his brain sliced up.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Samantha Wright]

Citation needed. Please show me a study where someone who becomes curious about something becomes more intelligent.

Given that we're talking about development from an extremely early age, that would be illegal, but I will do my best to explain this.

Conventional thinking right now is that intelligence is primarily genetic, and while it can be influenced by environment, it is largely fixed from birth.

This is the primary reason given for the class bias seen in IQ testing. That is not, at all, conventional thinking. Read this and this. If intelligence were genetic to the extent you suggest, the children of immigrants would be incapable of integrating at the most fundamental cultural level.

Curiousity is a personality trait. Intelligence is an ability. You can be curious and stupid, or disinterested yet intelligent. One has no bearing on the other.

If you are curious about how something works, you will be more likely to figure out how it works. Once you understand how things work, you can use that understanding to interpret more situations. This includes abstract concepts. Pattern matching, abstract reasoning, and creativity all depend on the fruits of a mind knowledgeable in such things. The brain cannot function in a vacuum (as learned from Genie, along with observations of animals in factory farms), and it cannot derive new ideas from absolute nothingness, only recombine what it has experienced (this is a central hypothesis of computational creativity).

The genetic element you're identifying is a person's potential to be intelligent. That potential is meaningless until some force motivates the person to learn to use it, whether that's curiosity, school, or parenting, because we are not born with an understanding of any axioms that we can derive new concepts or thinking strategies from. These last two don't cause self-sustaining intellectual growth, leaving curiosity as the only reliable driving force for a person's development of their intelligence.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

so change it to the multi-verse being a closed system, and you are back at a perpetual motion machine.

There are not enough Picards on the internet to facepalm this.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Samantha Wright]

Sure; I've just given an explanation in response to this somewhat more sceptical post.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Samantha Wright]

Sort of... but the reality is that the core of how cells work is directly analogous to the hardware/software distinction in a computer (in fact, they're Turing-complete), so stretching things into a car metaphor is much harder to do—try explaining the contents of a typical Unix box's task list in terms of types of vehicles you see on a road, and you'll see how pointless it is.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

Have you actually read your own posts in this thread?

No, I turned the monitor off and pressed tab 5 times and then enter when I was done. Why do you ask?

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Kielistic]

Basically, you have two options to explain the fact that the universe exists at all. 1) It is a big perpetual motion machine. 2) Magic. Option 2 is a far extraordinary claim than option 1.

Probably a few more options than that. Especially considering the current "most commonly accepted" (to the best of my knowledge) theory as the fate of the universe is heat death. That does not sound very perpetual to me..

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Daniel Dvorkin]

the core of how cells work is directly analogous to the hardware/software distinction in a computer (in fact, they're Turing-complete)

I was just trying to make a joke, but it's an interesting question: are cells Turing machines? (To the degree anything in the real world can be called a Turing machine; if you know where to get a computer with infinite memory, please send me the manufacturer's URL.) They have the potential to be, else we couldn't build biological computers--which AFAICT are just lab curiosities for now, but may someday do real work--but it seems to me they don't really act like them in their day-to-day functions. Then again, neither do our computers, a lot of the time ...

The more time I spend modeling gene regulation, the more skeptical I am of any attempt to draw any equivalence between computers and living organisms, or even parts of organisms, except in the very broad sense that we and our machines both process information. The collection of branching stochastic feedback loops necessary to carry out the processes of life, at every level from transcription to tissue function, is like nothing any sane engineer would ever try to build.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[metrix007]

Exactly. It's ridiculous the pedestal we place Einstein on.

I'd be willing to bet that many smarter than average people have larger than average corpus callosums. It doesn't seem like something that would be unique to Einstein.

Since Einstein, I think we have people who are without a doubt more intelligent, I mean just check this list.

Einstein made a breakthrough that would have inevitable happened anyway, because he was curious, smart, confident and able to think critically.

Putting him on a pedestal to the point where we study his brain like this just shows how ignorant and how low average intelligence is.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Thanks, that helps clear things up.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[nuonguy]

I don't accept your premise, but even if I did, your line of reasoning doesn't work. It sounds something like this:

"There are two explanations for our existence: 1) My ignorant portrayal of science I learned in church 2) God; you cannot show me that missing link, therefore god did it."

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Samantha Wright]

There's an old machine learning technique called genetic programming, which consists of randomly trying to find the correct algorithm to solve a problem. It's infeasible for large problems, but I've seen an example of using it to find Newton's law of universal gravitation. The raw result was a hilariously overcomplicated equation full of redundant multiplication and division operations, but it showed a real, meaningful evolutionary process. Just because a program's insane doesn't mean it's disqualified! (And as for engineers, remember Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.)

Anyway, there are a lot of analogies that are easily grasped to a computer expert that have significant value in understanding biology, even if they're not perfect—I've been working for a while on comparing chromatin modelling to disk seek time optimization. It doesn't really seem to break down until the focus is on actual networks, although there seems to be no shortage of design patterns in use.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[AK Marc]

That wasn't an ad hominem. Saying "I never said that" is not an attack on you personally.

Your inability or unwillingness to listen to others makes you a dumber than the stupidest person on the planet. At least they have an excuse for being so stupid. What's yours?

There, is that a better ad hominem?

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[AK Marc]

Curiosity causes thinking. Thinking causes more brain development. Just like practice thinking (the studies done about crossword puzzles in old people and such) proves an improvement in brain activity, one could take that to mean "curiosity causes intelligence".

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

Thanks, that helps clear things up.

I make a pretty good funny, and your retort is this? I'm disappointed.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not have to understand something to have it become scientific knowledge -- that's just extra. If you can observe something happening repeatedly and explain to others how to observe the same thing, and consistently get the same result, then you have science.

By that standard, the fact that gays are child molesters is science.

Not understanding that the correlation between homosexuals and child molestation is not the same thing as causation has led to much unnecessary grief. If you don't understand the underlying causation, please don't call it science.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Toshito]

A small scale engine can work, proof here:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QDZICiGmDxs&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQDZICiGmDxs

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[PNutts]

Tsk. Curiosity generates intelligence.

My cat is not able to duplicate your results.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Kjella]

Now, if you have some proof that the laws of thermodynamics are broken, the second law in particular... please step forward and collect about 50 consecutive Nobel Prizes.

Exhibit A: The Big Bang. Yeah so I'm sort of cheating since it's a total unexplained "phenomenon" if you can call the birth of a universe that but by the laws of thermodynamics as we know them the universe could never have begun. Even if you assume our universe sucked that energy out from somewhere else then that source must have even higher entropy, which must come from a place with even higher entropy and so on. If it's constantly decreasing then we either started at infinity - meaning we could build an infinite power source - or it was created in which case we in theory could create entropy in the same way resulting in an infinite power source. It is not entirely inconceivable to have "miniature Big Bang" generators that pull energy/entropy out of the same source, though I wouldn't have the first clue on how to build one.

That said, perpetual motion is a shyster's tool. If you could really pull off infinite energy production which is the only way to keep it going in perpetuity due to imperfections and most certainly the only way to extract any work from it except just to sit there and be pretty, then you wouldn't need perpetual motion. You'd just have a black block containing your magic with a socket on it and after verifying you're not transferring power into the box via hidden wires, magnetic induction, heat pumps or some other trick you'd be the richest man on earth. The only reason to use perpetual motion is because you can make the losses so negligible it lasts long enough to appear as infinite to the gullible.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Every breakthrough would have happened anyway so nobody is special?

Let me know when someone on the list does something of the same magnitude as the theory of relativity (relativity) *including* consideration of the accepted knowledge at the time.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[RespekMyAthorati]

Your over-emphasis on intelligence is elitism; It's suggesting that if you can't be "smart enough", you shouldn't be in science.

Unfortunately, the world is divided into the elite and the non-elite when it comes to mastering technically complex information, whether you like it or not.
Specifically, an aptitude for math is an absolute requirement in the physical sciences.
Without it, you may dabble in science, but will never be a significant contributor to it.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Samantha Wright]

Alas, your cat lacks the capacity for it. As does mine. (*thunk*)

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Watched too much Oprah Winfrey. There is not an Einstein in everybody.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[RespekMyAthorati]

You're pursuing this argument in a way that is typical in the humanities and social sciences, namely by deciding on the conclusion you want
("anyone can be a scientist") beforehand, and then justifying your conclusion by warping the definition of "scientist" to mean "anyone who is interested in science".
That is not what the word means.

The term "scientist" as it is used in common English, and certainly as it pertains to Einstein,
refers to a professional researcher who discovers and publishes new research.
And very few people have the aptitude set needed for that.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I make a pretty good funny, and your retort is this? I'm disappointed.

Long week at work.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up and die already you retarded tranny freak

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming that there was a time before the big bang.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[VocationalZero]

2. Perpetual motion is idiotic; There has never been a case of it being observed.

Said the electron to the nucleus.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Crazy Taco]

No, sorry, but this is a fractally wrong statement to make. With sufficient curiousity, you will be dedicated to learning as much as you can. The drive to learn will push you where you need to go. Intelligence merely sets the speed by which you'll arrive. Your over-emphasis on intelligence is elitism; It's suggesting that if you can't be "smart enough", you shouldn't be in science.

This is a nice thought, but patently untrue. It's like saying that anyone can be an NFL football player, and your level of physical talent and ability merely dictates the speed by which you'll arrive. But that isn't actually true. Without sufficient "speed" you'll never arrive, and it's the same in science. You may have the curiosity, but without the mental talent and aptitude you'll be forever beaten to new discoveries by all the other scientists who not only have your curiousity, but also the mental aptitude you lack.

Sure, anyone can play football and throw the ball around, but most don't have what it takes to play in the NFL. Similarly, everyone can learn the basics about the scientific method and learn to think in an empirical way, but not everyone has what it takes to be a professional scientist, or to make major scientific discoveries like Einstein did.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Crazy Taco]

are cells Turing machines?

Yes, they are. They are state machines (proteins, chemical substances, and other such items keeping state) with a semi-infinite tape (ie - DNA).

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[metrix007]

Way to misread and twist what I said AC.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[metrix007]

Your post loses credibility when you start it by deliberately playing semantics and misconstruing the OPs statement.

If you have to do that to make your argument, why is the rest of what you wrote worth reading?

Yet, I did read it. You seem to miss the point of the OPs post. He could have articulated it better, but nonetheless it is clear.

What we say to be impossible is based on our current understanding, which is woefully inadequate for making such bold assertions.

Your saying that certain things are 100% impossible, indicates you don't have the est understanding of science. So maybe don't go around correcting people, mmmmkay.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[metrix007]

Conventional thinking is not that intelligence is primarily genetic. It's that multiple factors play a role and we don't entirely know to what extents, or which is the most significant.

Everything you continue to say is so goddamn wrong.

Re: Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Neuroplasticity.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

talking of 'closed' systems,

I seem to remember what happened when some crual scientist thought to stick a cat in a box with poison and a radiation source.

The problem is current science understanding sticks everything in boxes! the empy set!

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Boom

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[girlintraining]

Long week at work.

Fine. You get a pass this time mister, but I better see some real effort next time we meet.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Belial6]

That is fine and dandy if you only look at one end of the time arrow. Claiming that heat death of the universe is even likely going to happen because energy only moves towards entropy without explaining how it got into the non-heat death state is doing an awful lot of hand waving. It is basically declaring "MAGIC!".

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Belial6]

No. My premise works like this: The universe can empirically be shown not to currently be in heat death. Since I don't believe in magic, I assume that there must be some scientific way in which the universe got into such a low state of entropy. You have it completely backwards. I say that the universe did NOT magically get into a low state of entropy due to magic. YOU are using ID tactics by claiming the universe got into a low entropy state, so it must have been by magic, but think that by not using the specific word "God", you think that makes it not religious.

Here is what we can show with easily collected empirical data. The second law of thermodynamics is as wrong as Newtonian physics. Meaning, it is good enough for pretty much everything we do, but breaks down under some circumstances. It is an appeal to magic to claim that it isn't when our very existence is empirical evidence that it is wrong.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post loses credibility when you start it by deliberately playing semantics

Semamtics is of vital importance, especially in discussion of science. If it weren't for semantics, no one would ever have any idea what anyone else was attempting to convey. Unfortunately, some have gotten it into their heads that semantics is silly or unimportant, and even attempt to dismiss entire arguments by pointing out "that's just semantics," which, btw, is really saying "you're talking about meaning." Meaning is what its all about... if meaning is unimportant, that's the ballgame.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. It's ridiculous the pedestal we place Einstein on.

Obviously you have not studied theoretical physics or you would be able to grasp just how truly enormous his achievements were. All other intellectual achievements in human history pale by comparison to what he achieved. As a lecturer once said to me, it's reasonable to assume others may have stumbled on Special Relativity eventually because some were close (Lorenz for eg) but, unlike Einstein, they totally misunderstood what they were approaching. Einstein created a whole new paradigm for physics. And again, I believe others were groping awkwardly and distantly toward general relativity but it was Einstein who guessed (that's right, these were some kind of an inspired educated guess) the correct field equations. And that's not even mentioning the photoelectric effect, for which he got the Nobel Prize and launched the whole quantum era.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

...isolated systems spontaneously evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium; which is to say... it stops moving.

Incorrect. Thermodynamic equilibrium does not mean a lack of motion necessarily.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[mcgrew]

Excellent, thank you!

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Beefpatrol]

The heat death of the universe involves the total energy + mass equivalent of the universe remaining constant while the spatial density of it asymptotically approaches zero. This, of course, implies that it never actually reaches zero, which means that in a sense, the entire universe, when considered as a whole, does exhibit perpetual motion if the universe is open. It would be interesting to prove that this is the only situation in which perpetual motion exists.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Beefpatrol]

I am not a big fan of the supernatural either. I see the realm of the supernatural as simply containing the things we have not yet figured out how to integrate into our understanding of the universe. At the same time, no matter how far up the chain of causality/explanation you go, you can always ask, "why is *that* there?" When considering the big bang as the origin of the universe, one can simply ask, "where did all of the big bang fuel, (energy, basically,) come from?" Saying, "it was just there -- it didn't come from anywhere and it didn't happen for a reason," just doesn't satisfy some people, (myself included.) No matter how much we know, humans will always want to know what caused . This insistence on always seeking further explanation can probably be explained by the fact that humans can't accurately comprehend nothingness. A total absence of anything cannot be simulated by the brain; humans can only perceive nothingness as a sort of void that exists -- a specifically present nothingness, which obviously doesn't make sense. (See historical scientists believing in the existence of an ether, etc...)

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Beefpatrol]

"The collection of branching stochastic feedback loops necessary to carry out the processes of life, at every level from transcription to tissue function, is like nothing any sane engineer would ever try to build." I beg to differ. It is exactly the kind of thing a sane engineer would try to build if said engineer were trying to build a machine that would, when given information about a black box, (inputs and corresponding outputs,) describe the contents of the box. Or something to that effect. Pattern matching, correlation discovery, reverse-engineering of algorithms from inputs and outputs, etc. Of course, all of this can be simulated by a regular computer....

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[paxcoder]

How we got to lack of "pre-judgement" as a factor of excellence I'll never know. I appreciate non-conformity more than most, but that hardly accounts for insight.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

I pretty much completely agree. It just popped into my head that what determines how a person thinks and what they do isn't just in their brains, but it's also how they're influenced by the other people around them. Like a gigantic, insanely complicated feedback loop involving tons and tons of people with each one never _really_ knowing how they're influencing the others.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Your.Master]

It's not declaring magic, it's declaring ignorance, and that is an entirely appropriate declaration.

One possible explanation is that the universe is in an infinite state of heat death bookended at a point we can arbitrarily call "the beginning" by a non-heat-death state. Any internal observer, by definition, can only exist at that infinitesimal slice of Universal history, so here we are. Why is the universe like that? Just is, under that theory. You go back far enough into any explanation, and ultimately the answer is "it just is" / "I don't know", whether you say "God just is" or "there just is a universe that recycles itself such that even entropy is reversed in the long run" or "there is just this one universe" or whatever.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Your.Master]

Our existence is not evidence of that. It could become evidence *if* you assume that there is an infinitely vast amount of time prior to now. I think that's a fairly common assumption but by no means proven and AFAICT has less evidence than the second law of thermodynamics.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

It is entirely possible to do science, produce valid results and not understand them at all. Some properly trained Downie might make a great experimentalist, but might not be able to direct his own research. The scientific method falls flat on its face when it comes to telling you which questions are worth asking.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anyone can be a scientist"

Wrong!
I am extremely curious, but have a good understanding of my abilities. Unfortunately, they are mediocre. And I am a true "Joe Average".
When it comes to thinking, we are all different. I really know when my brain reaches the ceiling of its abilities. And I am sure anyone does. Admitting it is another, very different story!
So such populism declarations serve politics, maybe, but in real life they are utterly wrong!
Mind You, I am not a fascist! It's just the way things are (We are).

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Belial6]

and ultimately the answer is "it just is" : Magic!
"I don't know": A declaration that heat death is absolutely going to happen contradicts this.
"God just is": Magic!
"there just is a universe that recycles itself such that even entropy is reversed in the long run": Perpetual Motion!
"there is just this one universe": Not an answer to the question.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Belial6]

If time can be created from the nothingness, and a low entropy state in the process, entropy has been reversed, and we are back to the second law of thermodynamics being flawed.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[kyrsjo]

I would be surprised if everything - especially valve springs and other timing-critical parts - are just scaled dimensionally.

A better example than a engine is a pendulum, which period is 2*pi*sqrt(L/g). If you change L, the frequency changes. If this pendulum (or similar part) is part of a machine, and there are multiple such parts, which doesn't neccessarily scale the same way, you end up with parts which was syncronized at one scale, not being synchronized at another scale. For an interference engine, that would mean something like the valve not closing properly before the cylinder comes -> clash & extensive damage.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[kyrsjo]

Quantuum mech on simple systems != large systems. For larger systems, "normal" thermodynamics applies.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Wolvey]

Humans can fly, no giant metal can required. Best of Wingsuit Proximity Flying

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Your.Master]

and ultimately the answer is "it just is" : Magic!

Stop being an asshole dude. It's not magic, it's justifiable ignorance.

You can call ANYTHING magic, including your assertion that perpetual motion must be in the universe -- you are positing "magic". Except, no, you aren't. You are positing an unknown mechanism, not a fucking wizard.

"I don't know": A declaration that heat death is absolutely going to happen contradicts this.

A declaration that the evidence points to heat death does not contradict this.

"God just is": Magic!

I agree, but that's irrelevant: my point is that it immediately leads to "who made God?" which is answered by "dunno?" or "mysterious ways".

"there just is a universe that recycles itself such that even entropy is reversed in the long run": Perpetual Motion!

This was me attempting to paraphrase your opinion, which was stated as perpetual motion, and show how it's magic, the same as the others.

"there is just this one universe": Not an answer to the question.

I apologize, what I meant by this is that there is just this one, non-recycling Universe.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Perpetual motion is idiotic; There has never been a case of it being observed.

Said the electron to the nucleus.

How do you know the electron is in motion?

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[VocationalZero]

Electron velocity is a standard component of the Bohr Model.

Re:Yet Another Einstein Article

[Belial6]

Stop being an asshole dude. It's not magic,

Well, Now I'm convinced. You must be right!

What the article fails to say but only implies

[MadCow-ard]

I've read a lot about neuroscience discoveries and interesting abnormalities and didn't know the direct correlation between the corpus collosum thickness and intelligence. Ok, so when someone claims something like this article I think - bah... another stupid claim about Einstein. But this time there is some merit to the claim. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754582/ And yes, his other brain differences were know for a while, so this seems to be a new revelation based on new evidence of the correlation and the discovered photos.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[girlintraining]

And yes, his other brain differences were know for a while, so this seems to be a new revelation based on new evidence of the correlation and the discovered photos.

All this ignores a rather glaring problem: The sample size is one.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[MadCow-ard]

no. The sample size which his brain is being compared to is much larger. He is the not the sample size, he is being compared to the known correlation of intelligence and corpus collosum thickness. Check it on google to find more research results.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[mysidia]

no. The sample size which his brain is being compared to is much larger. He is the not the sample size, he is being compared to the known correlation of intelligence and corpus collosum thickness. Check it on google to find more research results.

Yes. He is being compared; HOWEVER, if you were to argue that this means thick corpus collosum makes you perceived as intelligent, that would be to commit a prosecutor's fallacy.

The study does not show if corpus collosum thickness is useful information or not.

It only shows he had this difference; not that it was a factor in the public's perception that he is deemed intelligent.

The thick corpus collosum could be a coincidence, unrelated; it could have a tertiary or hidden cause, that might (or might) not also be related to our perception of his intelligence.

For all we know, thick corpus collosum hindered him, and he would be perceived as even more intelligent if it wasn't so unusually thick.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[girlintraining]

It only shows he had this difference; not that it was a factor in the public's perception that he is deemed intelligent.

While arguing about logical fallacies you've failed to address the original point entirely; A sample size of one is a problem, guys. It can't disprove the null hypothesis. It doesn't matter how many observations you make in the control group; At the very best, the ideal case, you'll succeed in identifying properties of this brain not present in all those other brains, but what you could be identifying may have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. It could just as easily be another property, like his love of Justin Bieber (hey, if we're going to allow a sample size of one to be scientifically valid, I'm bringing time travel back -- so no bitching).

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[MadCow-ard]

This is not about perception it is about facts, and correlation. Fact: Einstein had a much higher then normal/average intelligence. Fact (but not well understood or even well researched so I would call it a weak fact): thicker corpus collosum is correlated to higher intelligence. Fact (according to one study which measured the thickness of Einstein's corpus collosum using photos): Einstein's CC was thicker then normal. Ergo, there could be a connection between Einstein's CC and his intelligence (if that correlations prove true in the long run).

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[MadCow-ard]

While arguing about logical fallacies you've failed to address the original point entirely; A sample size of one is a problem, guys. It can't disprove the null hypothesis. It doesn't matter how many observations you make in the control group; At the very best, the ideal case, you'll succeed in identifying properties of this brain not present in all those other brains, but what you could be identifying may have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. It could just as easily be another property, like his love of Justin Bieber (hey, if we're going to allow a sample size of one to be scientifically valid, I'm bringing time travel back -- so no bitching).

But the sample size it not 1. The article is claiming two things: CC thickness is correlated to Intelligence (which the article should have backed up with references), and two: Einstein's CC was thicker then normal. It is thus drawing a rather thin correlation to a correlation. But the sample size is not 1 because the article is not trying to say that since Einstein had a large CC and was intelligent, then CC thickness must mean higher intelligence.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[mysidia]

It is thus drawing a rather thin correlation to a correlation. But the sample size is not 1

A correlation is a comparison of a measurement between two samples.

For example: People who have thick members and those that have thin members.

You cannot take a representative sample of people who have a small penis and a girlfriend-finding success rate of 3 girlfriend/year, and compare it against a sample of one person who has a large penis who happened to have a success rate of 14 girlfriends/year, to find a correlation of penis size to number of successfully found girlfriends.

By the same token, you cannot use a sample size of 1 person to establish a correlation of brain CC thickness to intelligence.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[girlintraining]

^^ This guy gets it. But next time man, stick with the traditional car analogy. If you mention penis, the discussion goes one of two ways after; Either everyone giggles and spends the next ten minutes exchanging awkward looks before one of them says penis again, ad nauseum... or someone assumes you insulted the size of their penis and WWIII breaks out, resulting in downmods and bitchiness all around. Also, anyone who has even 3 girlfriends a year obviously has commitment issues... let alone 14, at which point I start to question your credibility.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[Udom]

Einstein also had a bigger nose than most people. The brain is far more complex than painted here, having more connections than there are stars in the universe. While there are specialized modules, thinking is a committee activity and it turns out that almost all decisions are not made rationally but emotionally, with your consciousness being informed moments later ...all the while believing it is in control. If Einstein had only had the rational going for him he would never have found anything of note... Niels Bohr had a dream in 1913 of electrons whirling around a nucleus, woke up and wrote it all down. That dream is the basis of atomic theory. The ability to pull together disparate threads to make something new is now suspected to be the work of the associative cortex... but still in collaboration with all the other committee members that make up the brain.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[Kielistic]

To continue your infantile example you are forgetting about the group of people with a large dick having larger success with women than those with small. Now there is some evidence to say "buddy's giant dick might have helped with the ladies".

To put succinctly: this is not a sample of one. This is a datum in a sample.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[AK Marc]

You cannot take a representative sample of people who have a small penis and a girlfriend-finding success rate of 3 girlfriend/year, and compare it against a sample of one person who has a large penis who happened to have a success rate of 14 girlfriends/year, to find a correlation of penis size to number of successfully found girlfriends.

Your point may be right, but you undermine it with obviously false analogies. His brain is not being compared against one other (as in your analogy). Thus your analogy is false.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[AK Marc]

10^22 to 10^24 stars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Extrapolation_from_number_of_stars

10^14 connections. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=100-trillion-connections

Hard to listen to your opinion when your facts are demonstrably wrong.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[mysidia]

His brain is not being compared against one other (as in your analogy). Thus your analogy is false.

No. The analogy is correct. HIS Is the one brain being compared against a more representative sample of the population. You have reverse the relationship, that doesn't invalidate the analogy "The other people's brains" are being compared against HIM; he is the sample of 1, and he was not chosen randomly, either, therefore: he is not even a representative sample, which essentially means, that however you proceed from that comparison, it will have no scientific or statistical validity; you can only use it as a rough way to try to guess at a hypothesis --- not to test a hypothesis.

A valid correlation requires multiple representative samples from the population to achieve. Not a member of the population (Einstein), and a sample.

An example of a correlation is, you want to check for a relationship between height and weight -- you take 4 representative sample groups of people randomly selected from the population (simple random sample); 10 people in each group.

Within each group; you measure the height and weight of each person. You calculate an Average height, an Average weight, a Standard deviation of height, and a Standard deviation of weight for each group.

For each person in each group you calculate (Height - Average_Height)*(Weight - Average_Weight) You sum these for each group; the answer is the covariance

To achieve the ratio of correlation, you normalize the covariance by dividing by the product of the standard deviations of Height and Weight for the members of the group.

For each sample group, you obtain a fraction of correlation. You have established a reliable correlation, only if the groups are large enough, that the standard deviation of means for both variables across sample groups is small enough (small enough standard error). And if the coefficient is in agreement across the sample groups containing representative samples.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[AK Marc]

No. The analogy is correct. HIS Is the one brain being compared against a more representative sample of the population. You have reverse the relationship, that doesn't invalidate the analogy "The other people's brains" are being compared against HIM; he is the sample of 1, and he was not chosen randomly, either, therefore: he is not even a representative sample, which essentially means, that however you proceed from that comparison, it will have no scientific or statistical validity; you can only use it as a rough way to try to guess at a hypothesis --- not to test a hypothesis.

That's not how it works. You can look at one and have it be "meaningful". They call them "case studies" and it's a recognized and accepted practice. Comparing one against one doesn't work because you don't know what the "control" one is. Your "control" could be a 5' 0" adult male. So a 5'2" man would be considered "tall". That's why two samples of one doesn't work very well as a comparison.

But taking a single unusual male and comparing him against the "average" will correctly identify a basketball player as being "tall". Even if the tall basketball player was not randomly selected. Now, if you take the differences and incorrectly assign cause to them, that can't be helped, and would be true regardless of how the setup was done. Many to many properly double-blinded and all that only gives data, not results. Misinterpreting data is a different issue than bad data.

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[Anonymous Coward]

but the women say,
don't want no short dicked man.

I would expect that the biggus dickus managed to keep his mates long enough not to go through 14 a year.
Yes short dicked how to pull a bird guys on the internet may go through that many, but not biggus dickus!

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[mysidia]

That's not how it works. You can look at one and have it be "meaningful". They call them "case studies"

No. Case studies are not established science.

You do case studies as a way of generating potential ideas, when you haven't a clue.

All a case study gives you is possible "leads" to investigate. It doesn't show you that X was related to Y; it shows you one odd example where X and Y came together.

You do case studies when you have an outlier, and no understanding of the subject at all -- to attempt to suggest things that you may be able to test, to eventually do some science.

The case study itself shows nothing though. It's just a "clue" or breadcrumb.

Re: What the article fails to say but only implies

[Anonymous Coward]

Mind blown!

Re:What the article fails to say but only implies

[romons]

Einstein was a musician for most of his life. That accounts for the increased thickness of the corpus callosum. Not sure about the size argument. Neanderthals had larger brains than we do.

That's surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Here I thought it was because he tried his best and applied himself, which I've heard is all it takes for anyone to succeed.

Re:That's surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. You are a unique and precious snowflake.

comparing different brain images

[mandginguero]

Hmm, so we're comparing photographs of a fixed/preserved and sliced brain with those acquired by an MRI. Does anyone know what kind of variance or error these different imaging techniques introduce? There is enough variability in brain size and location of features that normal comparisons of one person's brain via MRI with another person's brain are rather meaningless. The standard procedure is to warp MRI brain scans to a common brain, and then run the comparisons of warped/normalized images....

Re:comparing different brain images

[Kevin Fishburne]

Not sure, but the other day I was slicing some brain with a bandsaw and not only did it make a big mess but I cut my god damned finger off and further contaminated the sample. So who knows.

Yes, but ...

[PPH]

... is this physiological difference innate or developed as a result of Einstein applying his brain to difficult problems? Like what happens to the brains of London cab drivers.

Re:Yes, but ...

[MadCow-ard]

it is just correlation, not a causation. That is a much higher bar to clear.

Re:Yes, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a little known fact that "correlation" is not any other word. "correlation" is not, for example, "furniture". "correlation" is also not "rocket" nor "fish". In fact, so few other words mean the same thing as "correlation" that there is almost no point in saying that "correlation" is not some other word. So why do we say it here? Because "correlation is not a causation" is how you say "Shut up!" on slashdot.

Re:Yes, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Something similar happens to Buddhist monks who spend their time meditating.

Causation is possible, and it's also not possible.

The former suggests working hard will develop the brain in ways that can, in turn, help the thinker think. It's also not very helpful in advancing the human brain.

The latter suggests something genetic that enabled him to make better and more meaningful connections, and suggests that genetically modifying humans to be more intelligent is very possible.

comedy in tradgedy

[Gravis Zero]

Thomas Stoltz Harvey (a pathologist) conducted Albert Einstein's autopsy. What they seem to omit (probably due to embarrassment) is that he stole Albert Einstein's brain. Apparently he was trying to figure out (and take the credit to be famous) the very same thing, what made Albert Einstein so intelligent. He became obsessed and it ended up destroying his life and marriages, yes, multiple marriages. The only thing two things he did right was preserve the brain properly (though he sliced it into many parts) and eventually (decades later) return the brain. If you think he got his just deserts, well, take solace in that his selfish actions destroyed him.

you can see this and other disturbing true tales in Dark Matters: Twisted But True on Netflix or your local torrent site.

Re:comedy in tradgedy

[Gravis Zero]

it looks like Netflix pulled this title (their probably license expired) but you can get it on amazon.com or your local torrent site.

Re:comedy in tradgedy

[Anonymous Coward]

Stole is such a harsh word. It wasn't like Einstein was using it at the time.

Damn Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Statistically speaking, half the population has a corups callosum larger than the average.

Re:Damn Lies

[MadCow-ard]

all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average... The Lake Wobegon effect is good for something, no?

Re:Damn Lies

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Statistically speaking, half the population has a corups callosum larger than the average.

So, you've studied the distribution of corpus callosum size enough to be sure the median is equal to the mean?

Re:Damn Lies

[uglyduckling]

The median is a form of average, so presumably the GP was referring to average (median) not average (mean).

Re:Damn Lies

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The problem is that "average" in common usage usually refers to the mean, except when it doesn't. Which is why statisticians avoid the word as much as possible. ;) It was the use of "Statistically speaking ..." that caught my eye; practically every time someone starts out that way, they're going to say something that needs calling out. (Other examples include "I'm opposed to censorship, but ..." and "I'll probably get modded down for this ...")

Re:Damn Lies

[AK Marc]

Statistically speaking, assuming everything to have a normal distribution until proven otherwise would be better than 99% of assumptions statisticians make. Even when demonstrably wrong (long tail effects) it's usually good enough that it's used anyway, because that's what the models and understanding surrounds. And only when looking at the log tail in isolation to the statisticians care enough to abandon the normal distribution.

Re:Damn Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe human corpus collossums have been shrinking over time.

Re:Damn Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, what? 99% of the assumptions statisticians make is that the distribution is normal!

Einstein Quotes

[SternisheFan]

Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."

"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

"The only real valuable thing is intuition."

"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."

"I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."

"God is subtle but he is not malicious."

"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."

"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."

"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."

"Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

"Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."

"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."

"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."

"Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."

"If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

"In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."

"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."

"Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."

"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"

"No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

Re:Einstein Quotes

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure many of these were from Einstein, but I'll bet a few were attributed to him for convenience. Just as Mark Twain gets assigned ownership of a lot of old zingers whose original author is long forgotten.

Re:Einstein Quotes

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's one more: "I really didn't say everything I said."

Re:Einstein Quotes

[TeknoHog]

"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" -- Albert Einstein

Re:Einstein Quotes

[rubycodez]

"the founder lost interest, and the mission and pride of accomplishment was thus lost. as it is often so with political movements and fads science, so it was with Slashdot and Cmdr Taco" -- Albert Einstein

homosexual men

[lisabeeren]

homosexual men have enlarged corpus collums too. http://paws.kettering.edu/~pstanche/ArchSexBehav.pdf what do these macro imaging studies really tell us?

Re:homosexual men

[MadCow-ard]

maybe that they are more intelligent. I'm not trolling, I'm somewhat serious. I also don't think correlation means more then just that: correlation (like ice cream and drownings), but it could. So lets stay open and keep looking for answers.

Re:homosexual men

[Anonymous Coward]

Well studies have been done which seem to correlate. The abstract implies that intelligent people are more likely to "experiment" though. That's not quite the same thing.

Re:homosexual men

[Jmc23]

Yeah, but the increased communication in that case is just the nagging from their feminine side!

Re:homosexual men

[Anonymous Coward]

TIL Einstein had a big "corpus collosum" and homosexuals have big "corpus collums". That sounds enticing, but how is it related to brains?

Re:homosexual men

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHAHAHA come on how is this not +5 funny?

Re:homosexual men

[Chalnoth]

It is appallingly sexist. I don't know if that's a factor, but it's certainly a joke that many people will not enjoy.

Re:homosexual men

[rubycodez]

why would you think that, you might be using as your sample base the professionals you meet who congregate to and live in large cities, but maybe also you should be considering the ones in prison. just as with straight people, those are mostly not einsteins in the slammer

Re:homosexual men

[Anonymous Coward]

That they have been wracking their brain over something. When society will change in a manner where coming to terms with homosexuality does not require extraordinary mental efforts, this will probably go away.

In other news, autopsy of Paavo Nurmi probably found that he had a much larger than average heart. If you sort your young people by heart size, you'll not find the next large runner.

You'll much more likely be successful with genetic sorting if you sort according to perseverence. Einstein was rather slow tackling his mathematical problems. But he did not stop. General Relativity equations were first published by David Hilbert after he had a talk with Einstein and diddled on them for a week. He retracted his paper later because of respect for Einstein's work and vision for years. Because Einstein worked on the relation with reality and brought things to match. For Hilbert, this was more of an intellectual challenge as meaningful or meaningless as hundreds of others.

"Life's not fair"

[Joining Yet Again]

And yet people will still say that your fate depends on how hard you try, rather than who your mother and father were.

Re:"Life's not fair"

[lisabeeren]

And yet people will still say that your fate depends on how hard you try, rather than who your mother and father were.

your genes only explain so much, and trying hard seems like a plausible contributor to success. i'm comfortable with the idea that applying yourself can make you more successful. genes certainly contribute (you only need to look at the heritability of IQ), but other factors come into it, otherwise we wouldn't need to bother with education, etc.

Re:"Life's not fair"

[Jmc23]

Ah Marvin. There's two ways to interpret those facts. Stop being part of the negative crowd, especially when we know that what you do affects your brain development.

Re:"Life's not fair"

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he meant "connections" his family has, vs. genetics.It's how I interpreted it. Nepotism, laws or not, abounds.

Re:"Life's not fair"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the "Just World" crew. It's simple enough to prove that being related to someone noteworthy, or being of note, will benefit you far more than being a nobody. Two rugby players in my country had warrants issued for their arrest because they were involved in importing drugs. They fled the country, came back a couple of years later, and got in virtually no trouble - had it been a nobody, though, and there would have been significant consequences for that.

Correlation, causation etc.

[Dr. Evil]

" his brain had unusual features which may have provided certain advantages"

Or... his life revolved around unusual studies which caused his brain to respond by developing the corpos callosum?

Re:Correlation, causation etc.

[93 Escort Wagon]

So a guy with the monicker "Dr. Evil" is giving credit to "unusual studies" involving the brain? Natch.

Re:Correlation, causation etc.

[Wraithlyn]

Certainly another possibility. Emphasis on "may have" in my original post. :)

Re:Correlation, causation etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

or during development in the womb normal people have massive cell die back in the brain (brain dead before birth) and Einstine had lass of that...

This is pretty common and ususally results in things like Autism, PTEN is one gene involved for example.

Re:Correlation, causation etc.

[Ol Olsoc]

" his brain had unusual features which may have provided certain advantages"

Or... his life revolved around unusual studies which caused his brain to respond by developing the corpos callosum?

Possibly - you do bring up a good question. Einstein does mention his passionate curiosity, and we do know that people with brain damage can rereout and relearn. So yes, this might be a chicken and egg phenomenon.

NOT NEWS

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard this 15 years ago. This is not news.

Re:NOT NEWS

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there is this PDF from 1999:
http://www.nslc.wustl.edu/courses/Bio3411/woolsey/Archives/2009/Lecture11/Einstein%20Lancet%20'99.pdf

Re:NOT NEWS

[Jmc23]

Which has to do with his parietal lobe. The pdf you link says his CC was average, only larger than expected if compared by handedness.

Genetic or Developed?

[dittbub]

I wonder if those parts of the brain can be developed like you develop muscles. Or is it genetic?

Re:Genetic or Developed?

[lisabeeren]

it appears that taxi drivers learning a city experience increases in size of certain brain structures implicated in memory:

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/brains-of-taxi-drivers-work-differently-than-average-people (couldn't find the journal article sorry)

but that old chestnut keeps coming up:

"What is not clear is whether those trainees who became fully-fledged taxi drivers had some biological advantage over those who failed. Could it be, for example, that they have a genetic predisposition towards having a more adaptable, 'plastic' brain?" Maguire said. "In other words, the perennial question of 'nature versus nurture' is still open."

Unusual brain features?

[justthinkit]

Aren't these unusual brain features exactly what half the humans on this planet have? Women have more "cross linking" of the two brain halves. IMO these are a minus when it comes to focusing on one thing -- like Einstein did with Relativity -- not a plus. So I'll go with the "more curious" explanation.

Thus and so

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I remember my mom telling me when I was a little kid 40 years ago that Einstein's brain had twice as many convolutions in it as a normal human.

Nova - How Smart Can We Get

[Jonah Hex]

Just watched this which includes the latest findings on Einstein's brain, and was struck by how bad NOVA has become. It used to be a fairly hard science show but this featured adolescent humor and cheesy cut scenes, such as the presenter and a scientist using binoculars to look at Princeton where the majority of his brain is stored. I can only hope this is not the norm for the current NOVA programming, as I was extremely disappointed. - HEX

Re:Nova - How Smart Can We Get

[RespekMyAthorati]

I can only hope this is not the norm for the current NOVA programming

It is. - OCTAL

This is not news.

[Roger Wilcox]

While interesting, this was known decades ago. Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" tv series, produced in 1978, has a segment specifically devoted to Einstein's brain. Sagan talks about Einstein's abnormally thick corpus callosum and suggests that it might somehow be related to his genius. Whoever authored this paper is not making a novel hypothesis.

Again with the statistical abuse

[paiute]

How many times is this story going to show up? When I was tutoring someone for AP statistics, I learned a lot of interesting shit. One thing I remember was that if you take some ordinary object and measure 20 properties of the object, there is a high probability that one of the properties will be far from the mean. So if you take some famous person's brain and measure it in enough ways, you will find a property which is far from normal. Then you say 'aha!' and write a story about how such and such's ability was due to this nonnormal brain property.

Re:Again with the statistical abuse

[tgv]

That's completely right, but this is even worse. This is not a random sample that can be drawn again and again, this is a fixed object and the independent variable in this case would be that we are all convinced that Einstein was more intelligent than the rest of us. That's methodologically quite unhealthy.

Second, the obsession with trying to explain everything from a single cause and from a single brain feature in particular has failed so often in the past. We don't even have a good definition of intelligence, we have studies that show the weirdest correlations between some IQ-test and brain sizes, so why should this particular feature be the sole responsible of Einstein's performance?

CC measurements are inherently problematic

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on... for a detailed description of why corpus callosum measurements are not really scientific see the chapter on female-male brain differences in Anne Fausto-Sterling's "Sexing the body".

I call hoax. And bad science.

Einstein would probably give this the stink eye

[Anonymous Coward]

To say that his intelligence was a "gift" is nothing besides an insult to the man. He earned it and worked for it. People often have this romantic assumption that Einstein was instantly in the money and fame with the general theory of relativity just shat out immediately. No. This is a man who was a patent clerk and had the extreme patience and interest in the world to sit in front of the window and just observe the universe. Imagining what would happen if he saw something such as a window break, but changing factors such as speed and acceleration. He did this for years, day after day. This is what gave him his famous intelligence. He wasn't "gifted" by some benevolent force. Furthermore, he would not call any of his formative years a "gift" considering that it was quite hellish for him during the time that he began forming the special theory of relativity. It even took months for his first paper about it to be noticed.

Pickled

[Anonymous Coward]

Was Einstein's brain pickled (for later study) against his wishes? What were his wishes?

I get the impression the actual brain was studies, not just photographs.

the corpus collosum and the egg

[globaljustin]

But this time there is some merit to the claim.....new evidence of the correlation and the discovered photos.

I agree there is some good science going on here and there is merit.

But this data isn't nearly as revealing as TFA & most pop-science articles will indicate.

You hit it by mentioning "correlation"

My point is, like the chicken and egg analogy, a larger corpus collosum doesn't make one smarter...reading, thinking, good health, human interaction, challenges, open-mindedness, accepting failures and changing and adapting...THAT makes intelligence...

We know how to make people smart...there are whole academic disciplines and organizations dedicated to the persuit...

This data doesn't tell us what made Einstein 'smart'....it tells us what **this** particular 'smart' person's brain looks like...

I'm not dogging the research per se, I **love** neuroscience...I am advocating for a more sceintificically rigorous way to talk/think about this ;)

Brains of the future?

[sharknado]

The next step is to determine which genes caused Einstein's brain mutations, and artificially induce this mutation to create smarter babies...

Re:Brains of the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

The next step is to determine which genes caused Einstein's brain mutations, and artificially induce this mutation to create smarter babies...

.. females with blue eyes and blond hair, hot bodies and born addicted to sex, please. Also please remove all the gingers.

Re:Brains of the future?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also please remove all the gingers.

And also remove the "anti-Gingers" like you; you obviously have some sort of 'thing' about Gingers, you might be a secret Gingerist in denial. Best not to take any chances.

Correlation or causation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory XKCD

Did they find the PLAGIARISM part?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_einstein.htm

http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Others/Others-Doc-Science&Forteana/+Doc-Science-Relativity&Einstein/EinsteinHoax-ChristianParty-ApparentlyUpdated.htm

Violin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could this have more to do with Einstein having been exposed to music since early childhood and being a violin player throughout his life? This study, for example, links a more developed corpus callosum with people in musical profession who train extensively since early life: http://psy2.ucsd.edu/~mgorman/lee.pdf

homosexuality doesn't fucking exist, we're all gay

[Anonymous Coward]

Try finding anyone "Straight" in ancient Greece. The victorian model of relationships is fucking moronic. Look at any of our ape ancestors, from chimps to bonobos. There is no such thing as "heterosexual" or "homosexual", there is only sex, and everyone has varying degrees of interest in all others. Hell, female bonobos lez-out just to relieve stress.

Humans are the only moronic apes on the planet.

PTEN

[Anonymous Coward]

PTEN will result in things like that, basically normal peoples brains develop then the cells die, litrally brain dead before birth.

Things like PTEN mutations stop this cell die back, PTEN often results in larger heads and Autistic Spectrum.

So what?

[__aaltlg1547]

This is not new information. Both observations about Albert Einstein's brain have been around for a long time.

But so what? Do we have evidence, aside from Einstein's brain, that being extra wrinkly correlates with high intelligence in humans? Or that having a bigger than average corpus collosum correlates to having higher intelligence in humans?

Brain connectivity

[Anonymous Coward]

The conclusions don't seem very well thought: Only a very minor fractions of the brain connections goes through the corpus callosum. An above average number of neurons should give the real top guy? Mean lengths of axons are about 4 cm, so it would be more natural to look at the local networks. Also, there is only moderate relation between the structural network and the function brain networks. Concluding on brain functions from structural network is not a central research path at the moment

Re:Hilarious JEW propaganda...

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be a hellish life of delusion, misery and hate. To be you is a terrible punishment.

cause or effect?

[cundare]

Was this the result of how he used his brain, or was this structure the reason why his thought process worked the way it did. Not clear, and there's plenty of evidence to support either conclusion.

Wrong Angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that my first question when seeing this blurb of an article is instead of thinking the shape determines the intelligence, why aren't people looking at the concept that the nutrition, experience, and cognitive training the brain receives determines its development, and thus it's physical makeup?

Wow

[endianx]

50% of the population have a corpus callosum that is above average in size.

What lessons have been learned? -None

[NSN A392-99-964-5927]

When you have dead tissue, whether it be the brain, a finger, an arm or a leg it contains no 'Life Force' Menos.

Trying to dig into dead tissue explains nothing. It is wishful thinking.

I know a few top Neurologist's in the United Kingdom and they agree that they still do not understand 99.9% of the brain and these professors have been at it for 40 years plus.