Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children • Hacker News Board

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#131

Post by jsprogrammer » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

trendia wrote: post #95

dalke wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Features #1-3 do not "rely heavily on intelligence". While intelligence certainly has a role, they rely much more heavily on training. All three also depend on knowing what is interesting , which is more a form of curiosity guided by knowing what other people know than a form of intelligence that can be measured by taking the SAT. (I don't know enough about #4 or #5 to make a comment.)

People with graduate degrees have higher than average IQ, but people with higher IQ do not necessarily have graduate degrees. That is, intelligence is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition to get a graduate degree in STEM. The other necessary conditions you mention (training, interest, etc.) are also important, but still require a baseline ability. Even looking at undergraduate degrees, IQ is a significant facto…

Again, you are only exposing group bias. Doctorates are largely predicated on test scores - they are a filter on who can access a defense committee - of course those with doctorates will have higher prior test scores; those with high test score were intentionally picked as doctoral candidates, in part, because of their test score(s).

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#132

Post by restalis » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

XparXnoiAx wrote: post #100

pmoriarty wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In certain areas, hours might be enough, but not always and everywhere. Chess is a good example. I've seen a 12 year old kid at a chess competition wipe the floor with dozens of much older players (people in their 40's, 50's, and up), who've been playing chess -- obsessively -- their whole lives. This 12 year old kid has been playing chess for maybe 6 years (let's say 8 years maximum), but he totally crushes others w…

>In certain areas, hours might be enough, There is no area where hours are enough. How you apply the hours is extremely important.

Actually, his example was very relevant in this regard. Chess has a limited set of rules, once learned all that remains is practicing and letting it to sink in ...for those who are slow at that. To develop poetry is not about the rules themselves as it is about the subjective appreciation of your readership. That skill is not that technical and may take years to hone it right.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#133

Post by acscott » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

Didn't see any answer on how to "raise a genius". The presumption is that we want more geniuses and that Ph.D.s are precious resources to society. Is there also a tacit belief here in the Great Man theory of history?

The message here is, well if you don't get a Ph.D., make a lot of money. If you don't make a lot of money, get a patent. If you don't get a patent, at least get published. There are other things that we also want to be able to cultivate other than those I bet.

When a group of geniuses could build a nuclear weapon to take out a whole country, I believe the interest in genius started to spark. Before then, what was the icon of a a genius (I'm thinking before Einstein became iconic)?

The article is interesting, what were the lessons though?

There are other measures of value to society other than STEM publications, income, patents, and Ph.D.s It's often the outliers that don't even fit the Gaussian that are more interesting to me. (Feynman said he scored 120 something on an IQ test.)

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#134

Post by pmoriarty » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #125

pmoriarty wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In certain areas, hours might be enough, but not always and everywhere. Chess is a good example. I've seen a 12 year old kid at a chess competition wipe the floor with dozens of much older players (people in their 40's, 50's, and up), who've been playing chess -- obsessively -- their whole lives. This 12 year old kid has been playing chess for maybe 6 years (let's say 8 years maximum), but he totally crushes others w…

I absolutely agree. Chess reveals in a very concrete way that you can just run out of talent. Every player seems to have an innate ceiling on their abilities that no amount of study will overcome. Spend long enough in a club and you'll see it over and over - the duffers in their forties who can never seem to break 1800 and the snotty kids who skyrocket to 2300 with no apparent effort. Golf seems to be fairly similar.…

I'm not sure if it's all about talent either. Many of those weak, older players started when they were older, or weren't exposed to a lot of chess (or chess training) when they were young, while the "talented" kids often did start young and got training or at least were surrounded by many other chess-playing kids. I think that makes a big difference.

It seems that there's a critical age when one's mind is better able to assimilate and make sense of the patterns in chess, and to memorize moves and positions. Chess requires a lot of pattern recognition and memorization, and if one does not train those early enough, it may be too late.

It would be a very interesting study to find out how many of those old, weak players actually did have a lot of exposure to and training in chess when they were young.. my bet is not a lot.

Also, I wouldn't expect to find a lot of highly achieving chess players who started playing chess later in life (let's say past their teens), no matter how brilliant and talented they are in other fields, or how well they perform on IQ tests or SATs. They'll probably be beaten by much younger players, no matter how much time and effort they put in to chess.

Learning to play chess well seems to be somewhat similar to becoming fluent in a foreign language, which children also usually excel in compared to adults.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#135

Post by paulpauper » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:26 PM UTC

acscott wrote: post #133

Didn't see any answer on how to "raise a genius". The presumption is that we want more geniuses and that Ph.D.s are precious resources to society. Is there also a tacit belief here in the Great Man theory of history? The message here is, well if you don't get a Ph.D., make a lot of money. If you don't make a lot of money, get a patent. If you don't get a patent, at least get published. There are other things that we…

the idea is that more resources are needed to nurture top talent, instead of these smart people being neglected. Cognitive capital is like any resource, and it should not go to waste.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#136

Post by geocar » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

saint_fiasco wrote: post #73

JacobJans wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I didn't expend any effort on my studies >I was reading calculus textbooks when I was 10 years old. I suggest that you, indeed, spent effort on your studies.

Calculus textbooks are difficult but rewarding. A 10 year old child who can enjoy them must have some gift that makes it easier for them to understand the difficult parts quickly and get straight to the rewarding part.

> must have some gift

Or what?

The rest of us are dumb?

It could have been a good teacher, who found a way to make it make sense, or some other series of positive reinforcement that shaped them and prepared them, to be thinking about mathematics clearly. It doesn't have to be the luck of the draw.

I don't want anyone to give up, thinking they just didn't get the gift, so they should be content with playing with the ball. If you don't get mathematics, you might just haven't had the right circumstances to get it yet.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#137

Post by heartbreak » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

betenoire wrote: post #8

But are they happy?

I knew of only two SET students when I was in school. Student A you'd never guess was in the program. She went to a small college with only regional recognition, and she currently works as an accountant for a small business. Student B was another childhood friend of mine. Total geek who got me interested in programming when we were 13. He went to MIT for a semester when he was 17, and he returned home suicidal. He graduated from a community college and works at a Texas Roadhouse.

I wouldn't claim to know if either are happy.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#138

Post by yomly » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

6stringmerc wrote: post #116

yomly wrote: post #75

As someone interested in education (of self and of others) and generally interested in the notion of talent itself, I have been trying to form my own personal understanding of what it means to be talented. My fundamental belief is that almost anything can be learned under the right instruction. Talent determines two things: 1 - your upper ceiling of "achievement" in a particular dimension, and 2 - how far you can pro…

Related to your Chopin anecdote, numerous monster & legendary guitar players and song writers (Chet Atkins, Willie Nelson, & tons more) cited Django Reinhardt, the "two-fingered gypsy jazz guitarist" as opening their horizons more than any other. It was from his technique that his creativity could flow. As if the handicap was simply an augmentation - as you mention - and didn't terribly interfere with what he was 'de…

>I think a lot of times lay-people can mistake "broken rules" that accidentally work for "talent" and it is frustrating.

Couldn't agree more. To quote Picasso:

    "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child"

Children break all the rules when painting and it literally took him his life's work to understand how to effectively formalise the lack of formalism. And thus there are millions/billions of children in the history of art, but there was only one Picasso...

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#139

Post by criddell » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

Jimmy wrote: post #118

csallen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask how old you are? And what you're trying to achieve?

I'm 24. My goal is to be one of the most influential video game designers of this century. I may not be considered the absolute greatest (rankings like that are very fickle anyway, and never universally agreed upon, even in the sciences). But I do want my works to be considered necessary for any future survey of the major works of this period.

> My goal is to be one of the most influential video game designers of this century.

Shouldn't your goal be to make great games? Otherwise, aren't you striving for a goal defined by other people? For goals like yours, politics and personality can matter as much as the work itself.

If you are enjoying the journey you are on, then go for it (and I hope you are spending as much time on your social network as you are on games). Otherwise, I'd urge you to consider the opportunity costs of a narrow, intense focus.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#140

Post by rb808 » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

Jimmy wrote: post #39

exelius wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't fret; everyone in our generation was raised to believe we were the 1 in 10,000. That simply can't be true 99.99% of the time. We're a generation that needs therapy to realize that a stable, six-figure job as a mid-level engineer at 30 isn't failure. Our expectations (some might say entitlement) were set so unreasonably high that most of us have no chance of meeting them.

Well, that's simply unacceptable to me. A stable six-figure job is failure. If I'm fated to try and fail for the rest of my life to break into the 1 in 10,000, then so be it.

>A stable six-figure job is failure.

If you look at the study, only a quarter of the gifted students made it to the 95% income percentile.

Being a Genius doesn't make you rich or happy or give you a satisfaction. It makes it more likely you'll have a PhD & produce academic papers.