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

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

#341

Post by rsp1984 » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #157

squigs25 wrote: post #143

Interesting read, but I have one major qualm about this. There seems to be a confirmatory bias among the academic community that a measure of intellectual success can be found in the percentage of individuals who earn a PhD. Sure, it's true that you need to be reasonably smart to earn a PhD, but I think that someone can have a lot of intellectual success (potentially just as much or maybe more) if they don't earn a P…

Knowing a few friends and other acquaintances with PhDs, all they have common is endurance and focus. They were not exceptionally creative, or apparently breathtakingly genius. And I guess that's why Google et al. likes to hire PhDs. They can take all kinds of shit, and endure. Get to the bottom of those problems even in the face of internal politics/bureaucracy.

Really? As a PhD what you do is explore a -- best case: niche, usually: theoretical and worst case: completely made up -- problem thoroughly in absence of workplace realities like deadlines, office politics and backstabbery, and try to come up with a solution that's better in at least some sense than what's been written before, then write a big piece of documentation about it whose total number of individual readers in most cases won't reach double digits.

This does not prepare you well for most workplaces, except for maybe Google, who have enough resources to create an alternate reality for their engineers so they don't have to grow up.

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

#342

Post by sluggg » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

bluetwo wrote: post #69

I agree with the article that spacial ability is an untapped resource, key to understanding and problem solving. I think there is a pretty easy way of testing this, simply by finding out what they find funny . Different kinds of humor tap this skill, and those drawn to certain types of humor, IMHO, likely have better spacial skills.

interesting, do you know of any studies showing this?

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

#343

Post by imgabe » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 9:00 PM UTC

balabaster wrote: post #293

pmoriarty wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Godlike genius.. Godlike nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! I've failed my way to success." -- Thomas Edison "Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lives solely in my tenacity." -- Louis Pasteur "Men give me credit for genius; but all the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject on hand I study it profoundly." -- Alexander Hamilton

I can't believe that it's coincidence that every person I've ever come across that has been proclaimed a genius at whatever has had this very same sentiment to express. There was a grain of talent and a moment of inspiration that led to a dogged pursuit of their interest. People are quick to write it off as "oh, they had talent" or "oh they were a genius", but I'm reasonably confident given the number of amazing peop…

Nobody ever mentions the counterexample, assuming it exists - the person who spends thousands of hours practicing but never gets anywhere. How many Salieris are there for each Mozart?

There's definitely a need for hard work in order to have success, but perhaps there's something necessary that has to be present for the hard work to build upon. Maybe that something is "genius".

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

#344

Post by nitrogen » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

truth_sentinell wrote: post #153

smnplk wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes genetics to be interested in something too I believe.

I need proof. This is one of the questions I have been interested in for a long time. Do we invent or discover ourselves?

You might enjoy reading some of the discussions of free will (or the lack thereof) in the face of a material universe. A good starting point might be searching for "free will" on Jerry Coyne's blog: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:whyevolutionistrue.word...

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

#345

Post by AIMunchkin » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 9:03 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #226

pas wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing a few friends and other acquaintances with PhDs, all they have common is endurance and focus. They were not exceptionally creative, or apparently breathtakingly genius. And I guess that's why Google et al. likes to hire PhDs. They can take all kinds of shit, and endure. Get to the bottom of those problems even in the face of internal politics/bureaucracy.

"Godlike genius.. Godlike nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! I've failed my way to success." -- Thomas Edison "Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lives solely in my tenacity." -- Louis Pasteur "Men give me credit for genius; but all the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject on hand I study it profoundly." -- Alexander Hamilton

My favorite Edison quote:

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

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

#346

Post by ArkyBeagle » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 9:09 PM UTC

squigs25 wrote: post #143

Interesting read, but I have one major qualm about this. There seems to be a confirmatory bias among the academic community that a measure of intellectual success can be found in the percentage of individuals who earn a PhD. Sure, it's true that you need to be reasonably smart to earn a PhD, but I think that someone can have a lot of intellectual success (potentially just as much or maybe more) if they don't earn a P…

What's important is a familiarity and a comfort with rigor.

You don't have to be a genius to gain that. It might even be a liability - you don't have to follow the formula to get the right answer ( because you're impatient and want to go play outside ) ; you can just see the answer. This happened to me, and I spent a couple or four years as an undergrad undoing damage I'd done to myself that way.

I'd buy a lot more about what we think we know of human capability if there was even the most modest attempt to control for this factor.

I went to what used to be a "normal" school that had risen to university status. It still mainly taught teachers although I pursued a BSCS.

I asked the department chairman of the department why math was taught "from the wrong end of the telescope" and even he didn't really know why. I suppose the proofs course is no way to get buy in, but had I started with proofs rather than what they taught as algebra, I'd have had an easier time of it. I'd taken geometry but even algebra was still a morass, until I'd gotten a grounding in proofs.

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

#347

Post by Toine » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

aquiles wrote: post #19

I'm so glad I'm over my "being super-smart" phase and into my "being a well-rounded, functional human being" phase. People who fetishize things are the source of all things bad in the world.

Same here. The first phase can lead you to BIG psychological pain. Recovering is hard.

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

#348

Post by pbhjpbhj » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

rsp1984 wrote: post #341

pas wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing a few friends and other acquaintances with PhDs, all they have common is endurance and focus. They were not exceptionally creative, or apparently breathtakingly genius. And I guess that's why Google et al. likes to hire PhDs. They can take all kinds of shit, and endure. Get to the bottom of those problems even in the face of internal politics/bureaucracy.

Really? As a PhD what you do is explore a -- best case: niche, usually: theoretical and worst case: completely made up -- problem thoroughly in absence of workplace realities like deadlines, office politics and backstabbery, and try to come up with a solution that's better in at least some sense than what's been written before, then write a big piece of documentation about it whose total number of individual readers…

Not a Ph.D but reports from (UK) doctorate holders suggest there's sometimes a lot of backstabbery, often deadlines (funding), very often lab/department politics.

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

#349

Post by ArkyBeagle » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 9:14 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.

Calculus class simply provides a method for testing how good your algebra is. It's an elaborate algebra test. The stuff where you use calculus is the calculus test, etc. etc.

I know of a specific technique for teaching algebra - write down the principle used to justify each step in a derivation/solution - that will teach algebra cold but it "costs" too much so we don't do that.

I've heard at least one "officer" ( like dean ) level academic say "We use calculus class to keep the stupid people outta med school."

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

#350

Post by mhurron » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 9:16 PM UTC

Practicality wrote: post #314

mhurron wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That intelligence can be distilled down to a single number is bullshit. IQ score is meaningless. http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(12)00584-3

That may or may not be true, but it's not what we were talking about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts#Logical_f...

Except it is, you are trying to put forward that IQ among engineers is high as some proof that HN must be of a higher general intelligence than the rest of the population.

I said IQ is bullshit, the implication being it can not be used to prove your position. For IQ to support your position, it must be a valid measurement of intelligence.

I am attacking the validity of your data.