Over beer, a colleague of mine (Dave) made the comment along the lines of "only great contributions to science can come from autistic-smart people". Here, contributions generally refers to innovations (in the context we were talking about science and paradigm shifts) and so-called 'autistic smart' refers to a higher level of intelligence credited to a level of autism, or "autistic genius" in that you must be autistic to be that smart (in the colloquial sense such as specialist intelligence).
Firstly, I have got to point out that autism is no picnic, it characterises a spectrum of structural malformations of the brain, typically during development and genetic in origin. It is easy to assert the premise based on the correlation of general properties, such as obsession, underdeveloped social skills, and intelligence quotient between genesis and autistic (autistic savant for the latter property). This correlation is so effortless that people publish books analysing dead genius through the autism lenses, for example see Genius Genes: How Asperger Talents Changed the World.
There is also a spectrum of genius, and the kind I have always admired are those famed for scientific contributions. Specifically, when it comes to ‘hard work’ and ‘genius’ I think of Darwin toiling for about 25 years on the principles and evidence that became 'the Origin. I also think of the Newton and the papers that became his Principia Mathematica. These guys were way smart, but they also did a lot of work! I also get images of the hundreds of Nobel laureates who generally are credited with their contributions when they were young and ambitious (read as: bright, well positioned, and energetic enough to follow through on their ambitions).
I generally disagree with the premise, as my philology has always been 'hard work pays off', and being a trained software engineer means that my hard work in the short term is directed toward maximising my laziness (potential for less work in the longer term). For example, abstracting and solving generalisations of problems so I can maximise my effort through solution reuse. I’m not advocating that hard work makes you a genius, but rather it maximises the contribution positional of a person genius or otherwise. Beyond the technical definition of the term (IQ > 140), you may be credited as a genius by the products created by simply for sticking with (obsessing about) a problem for long enough to see it through.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Hard Working Genius?
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4 comments:
I was thinking about the flipside to this post. Specifically, I was rolling around ideas firstly from Gladwell's Talent Myth where blind faith in intellect and ambition alone can cause all kinds of problems, and secondly from Feinberg and Tarrant's book "Why Smart People do Smart Things" that points out all the ways being (or thinking you are) 'smart' causes you to make mistakes.
A generic related post advocating persistence and perspiration over innate talent titled How you, too, can be a genius
A good article by Gladwell titled: In the Air Who says big ideas are rare? Considers the situation where multiple people come to the same conclusion (scientific discovery or idea) around the same time. I like this quote:
"A scientific genius is not a person who does what no one else can do; he or she is someone who does what it takes many others to do. The genius is not a unique source of insight; he is merely an efficient source of insight."
Another related article entitled: How to be a genius, 15 September 2006 by David Dobbs.
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