The cult of genius?

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-cult-of-genius.html

by jonnybgood • 11 years ago

62 27 11 years ago

infoproc.blogspot.com

evoloution• 11 years ago

Has anyone done any studies to correlate intelligence with net worth? Since the +3 or +4 SD people usually work to satisfy their own curiosity and thirst for knowledge, I would assume that it doesn't pay really well above a level...

I find it rather discouraging that mediocracy really punishes people for being extremely smart. Evolutionary punishment is decreasing their fitness (money, social stature, e.t.c.) and thus decreasing their procreation chances. Smart women are affected even more. Not to mention the intentional punishment/oppression by different intelligence class supervisors.

PS: one of my favourite relevant reads: http://prometheussociety.org/cms/index.php/articles/the-outs...

Retra• 11 years ago

Evolution doesn't work based on money and social stature. It works on the penis-in-vagina system.

brass9• 11 years ago

He wore a vest summer and winter, and never learned to bathe regularly.

I am curious as to why so many geeky/nerdy type guys express disinclination to daily bathing (myself included).

While regular bathing is beneficial to maintaining hygiene and health, too frequent bathing (especially when using cleansing products) can disrupt the skins natural sebum, pH & moisture control mechanism, dislodge the natural bacterial flora which may predispose the person to harmful infections. Many chemical products commonly used during bathing (soaps, shampoos, gels, disinfectants) are known to mess with the human immune & endocrine systems, a few may even be carcinogenic. Afflictions like eczema, asthma etc. are allegedly attributable to a heightened state of "hygiene" among modern humans - the immune system which keeps constant vigil against infections, is rendered "jobless" because the chemical disinfectants have done it's job, eventually attacks the body itself.

Spurred by the aggressive marketing from the personal cleansing products manufacturers, daily bathing has become a cultural phenomena in our society. Prime motivation for daily bathing seems to be grooming these days.

Anecdote does not equal evidence, but I've encountered many geeks who are inclined to hold off having a bath until it becomes necessary. I wonder why that is?

An interesting read: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/fashion/31Unwashed.html?_r...

ant6n• 11 years ago

I didn't shower every day. Then I got overweight. Now I do.

bordercases4• 11 years ago

studies

Yep. http://lesswrong.com/lw/7e1/rationality_quotes_september_201...

hashberry• 11 years ago

That article is rather misanthropic--all humans with average intellect are simply "teachable animals?" And does society and evolution really punish those with high intellect? Sidis was disgusted with sex and removed himself from the gene pool. That's his fault. And how are "smart women" affected by decreased procreation chances? They can go to the sperm bank and find a high IQ donor. And men can buy a surrogate.

tokenadult2• 11 years ago

I have become more and more discouraged by the blog kindly submitted here. The blog post author started out as a physicist, somehow didn't make a big mark in physics, and since then has been going into academic administration. His blog collects his unpublishable (in the scientific sense of "publishable," after peer review) thoughts about a variety of controversial issues on which he expresses opinions without as much knowledge base or professional training and experience as the older domain experts who actually research those issues. I just haven't found this blog to be a reliable source for Hacker News submissions that lead to informed, fruitful discussion. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

emgoldstein2• 11 years ago

This has to be the nicest, most reasonable-sounding ad hominem argument I've ever seen.

But it's still an ad hominem argument. Is there any way you actually disagree with the post? What would you say to Dr. Hsu if he were in the room?

Also, what is your evidence that he's not in touch with experts in psychometrics and human genomics? I don't know him, but I have very much the contrary impression.

tokenadult2• 11 years ago

Also, what is your evidence that he's not in touch with experts in psychometrics and human genomics? I don't know him, but I have very much the contrary impression.

I don't know him in person but I have emailed him. He is in touch with a lot of eminent experts (I know some of the same eminent experts and see some of the regularly in person), but he hasn't imbued their worldview about human genetics, forged after years of pursuing other worldviews that don't hold up to experimental test. But your comment is fair, so I'll recommend here for you and for onlookers some writings by people who are experts in psychometrics and human behavior genetics.

The review article

Johnson, Wendy; Turkheimer, Eric; Gottesman, Irving I.; Bouchard Jr., Thomas (2009). Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 4, 217-220

http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...

includes the statement "Moreover, even highly heritable traits can be strongly manipulated by the environment, so heritability has little if anything to do with controllability. For example, height is on the order of 90% heritable, yet North and South Koreans, who come from the same genetic background, presently differ in average height by a full 6 inches (Pak, 2004; Schwekendiek, 2008)."

The review article

Johnson, W. (2010). Understanding the Genetics of Intelligence: Can Height Help? Can Corn Oil?. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(3), 177-182

http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/...

looks at some famous genetic experiments to show how little is explained by gene frequencies even in thoroughly studied populations defined by artificial selection.

"Together, however, the developmental natures of GCA [general cognitive ability] and height, the likely influences of gene-environment correlations and interactions on their developmental processes, and the potential for genetic background and environmental circumstances to release previously unexpressed genetic variation suggest that very different combinations of genes may produce identical IQs or heights or levels of any other psychological trait. And the same genes may produce very different IQs and heights against different genetic backgrounds and in different environmental circumstances. This would be especially the case if height and GCA and other psychological traits are only single facets of multifaceted traits actually under more systematic genetic regulation, such as overall body size and balance between processing capacity and stimulus reactivity. Genetic influences on individual differences in psychological characteristics are real and important but are unlikely to be straightforward and deterministic. We will understand them best through investigation of their manifestation in biological and social developmental processes."

(The review by Johnson, by the way, is rather like Tao's understanding of how mathematical talent develops in individuals, which prompted the blog post kindly submitted here.)

A comprehensive review article for social scientists on genetic research on IQ emphasizes what is still unknown.

Chabris, C. F., Hebert, B. M., Benjamin, D. J., Beauchamp, J., Cesarini, D., van der Loos, M., ... & Laibson, D. (2012). Most reported genetic associations with general intelligence are probably false positives. Psychological science, 23(11), 1314-1323. DOI: 10.1177/0956797611435528 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498585/

http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/9938142/Most_Repo...

"At the time most of the results we attempted to replicate were obtained, candidate-gene studies of complex traits were commonplace in medical genetics research. Such studies are now rarely published in leading journals. Our results add IQ to the list of phenotypes that must be approached with great caution when considering published molecular genetic associations. In our view, excitement over the value of behavioral and molecular genetic studies in the social sciences should be tempered—as it has been in the medical sciences—by an appreciation that, for complex phenotypes, individual common genetic variants of the sort assayed by SNP microarrays are likely to have very small effects. Associations of candidate genes with psychological traits and other traits studied in the social sciences should be viewed as tentative until they have been replicated in multiple large samples. Doing otherwise may hamper scientific progress by proliferating potentially false results, which may then influence the research agendas of scientists who do not appreciate that the associations they take as a starting point for their efforts may not be real. And the dissemination of false results to the public risks creating an incorrect perception about the state of knowledge in the field, especially the existence of genes described as being 'for' traits on the basis of unintentionally inflated estimates of effect size and statistical significance."

The newer publications on the topic are not changing the picture significantly. If one desires to develop a child's mathematical ability, for example (a problem I have pondered four times over as a parent), then the thing to do, after gaining whatever favorable shuffle of genes one can through thoughtful choice of a marriage partner, is to ensure that the child receives a sound primary education in mathematics. That is rarely done in the United States,[1] but it's something parents can do if they know mathematics well through some other channel, for example having lived in another country.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Teaching-Elementary-Mathematic...

http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/amed1.pdf

http://www.ams.org/notices/199908/rev-howe.pdf

http://www.math.wisc.edu/~askey/ask-gian.pdf

http://toomandre.com/travel/sweden05/WP-SWEDEN-NEW.pdf

http://educationnext.org/when-the-best-is-mediocre/

thewarrior• 11 years ago

But don't you feel that taking this "growth mindset" too far is like asking Penguins to flap harder ?

RogtamBar• 11 years ago

somehow didn't make a big mark in physics,

Practically no one makes a 'big mark in physics' anymore, unless they are a bona-fide genius. Hsu is merely very smart and hard-working, otherwise he'd not have graduated from Caltech.

I just haven't found this blog to be a reliable source for Hacker News submissions that lead to informed, fruitful discussion.

Anything defending genetic determinism is basically flamebait. Methinks those people should stop flaming and read something on identical twins reared separately, and how they are less different from each other than siblings brought up together.

bordercases4• 11 years ago

This issue seems loaded because cognition is the way you win big now. Although NFL stars win big with pay, it's the Gates and the Zuckerburgs who loom high in our minds.

I've learned to ignore the issue (aside from its entertainment value) because there's still too much for me to optimize within my phenotypic range and local environment to make me better off – or at least, so I think. Either way there's much more to keep me busy than navel-gazing at cognitive-height so much.

On a related note: James Flynn of the Flynn Effect has noted many paradoxes within his infamous and eponymous result. I.Q. might not be improving so much. He anticipates explanations which synthesize nature and nurture but also look at the mind in terms of more basic cognitive operations and strategies. If I.Q. scores increasing reflect on the acquisition of useful, task-specific strategies, one might still be emulate the downward effect of a couple of I.Q. points which is at least something to be optimistic about. Newton only discovered Freshman Calculus. http://neuroanthropology.net/2008/12/16/the-flynn-effect-tro...

EDIT:

Or perhaps it's the reduction of ambiguity/improvement-of-clarity that intelligence can bring that makes it so appealing in modern life? In which case there's still Buddhism to help with that.

xiaoma2• 11 years ago

Although NFL stars win big with pay, it's the Gates and the Zuckerburgs who loom high in our minds.

That's interesting. I have the opposite view: people in tech tend to earn more, but it's the LeBron James's and Taylor Swifts of the world that loom in our minds.

illumen• 11 years ago

... and there's hundreds of millions(billions?) of people who wouldn't know any of those names.

onion2k• 11 years ago

People like LeBron James and Taylor Swift make most of their money from endorsements, and I'd argue that endorsement income doesn't really scale very well. There's a limit to what your brand is worth if you're a celebrity - you can make hundreds of millions of dollars by diversifying across a huge range of products but that's pretty much it. You'll never earn more than a small percentage of the marketing budget of the biggest company in any one market multiplied by the number of markets your celebrity brand is applicable to. Whereas a tech founder has a practically unlimited upper bounds to their net value; if you start a company that becomes the defacto monopoly in a space (operating systems and office software, or social media for example) your fortune tops out at some percentage of that entire market, multiplied by the number of markets you can leverage your product in to. That's a far bigger number.

papapra2• 11 years ago

Can I ask what are the optimizations that you speak about ?

bordercases4• 11 years ago

As far as objectives go? Health. Physical size and energy. I do think better after pushing myself at the gym and currently I'm still scaling up that sort of effort. Once I'm leading a non-sedentary lifestyle I think that would be a better description of baseline performance.

Meditation is also a pretty decisive win for me and once again it's something that has to be done consistently for benefits to be sizable and stable.

Even if it comes down to refreshing myself every day with the same routine for four to six hours and the rest is working at something that is worth doing, and I live that day over and over for most of the year, I think it would be worth it.

I was not born with any obvious defects although I don't think I'm exceptional by any means when compared against others in the middle class. Growth is one of those things that occurs when you focus on the derivative instead of the total objective function

bordercases4• 11 years ago

There's also the question of what it would take to bring Flynn's SHA notions to their natural conclusions.

bronz• 11 years ago

I think that intellectual pissing contests are disgusting. In upper middle-class institutions such as Berkley people seem to revel in it. Everybody embraces the imaginary hierarchy so completely that watching them do it makes me gag. I think that this phenomenon has been intensified by the relative disappearance of the middle class. People no longer aspire to academic excellence because of their passion or enjoyment for the subject they study. Instead they believe that they need to be among the elite in order to have a happy and satisfying life.

The cult of genius?

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