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

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

#411

Post by balabaster » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 2:28 AM UTC

ThePawnBreak wrote: post #327

balabaster wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is always a bell curve. It's more obvious in fields where people start practicing from a tender age, like chess or music, where you start learning when you're around 4. There are many who dedicate their lives to such pursuits, but very few become Kasparov or Mozart. The others still become extremely good, but not the best, and most are forgotten by history.

But to be honest, you don't need to be Mozart to be considered a musical genius today... There are a dozen orchestral genii alive today that could easily outstrip the genius of Mozart when you compare the body of their orchestral work. Yet when these composers are dead and gone, 30, 40, 50 years from now, everyone will still be talking about Mozart, and todays better-than-Mozarts will be lost to the sands of time. It's quite sad how biased our filters are really.

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

#412

Post by sverige » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 2:35 AM UTC

I'm one of those gifted children (at least by the measure of standardized tests) who were missed by the people looking for them, I reckon. I was always in the .999 percentile on those (SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT), was very good at math and loved it at a young age.

Somewhere in my teens I lost the desire to achieve all this stuff discussed in the article. Intellectually it would not have been difficult, but emotionally I didn't give a shit. I didn't really mature until I was in my 30s or 40s (and some would say, not yet!).

Sometimes I think, well, I wasted my life. Then again, although I haven't done anything noteworthy, I have no regrets for the life I have lived so far, even though many would say I "squandered" a lot of talent. The core values instilled in me by my parents are intact and actually stronger, and those values don't place much emphasis on reaching the pinnacle of success as described in the article. Frankly, the responsibility for shaping the world into what it has become would be almost too much to bear.

My advice would be that if you are one of those high achieving geniuses, it is worth thinking about yet again whether what you value is the best it can be. If you have a very gifted child, be extraordinarily careful about who you allow to influence them for as long as you can. Teach them your values, and make sure they're worthwhile.

I still recall a story about Thomas Aquinas in his old age. He realized that his magnum opus, the Summa Theologica, was worthless vanity and tried to destroy it. The professor or author who told the story said, "Fortunately, he was prevented from doing so." But was it fortunate? Who better to judge than its author what its true value was? How many of these people will find small comfort in their accomplishments when they reach a ripe old age?

But talking this way is very unpopular, I realize.

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

#413

Post by serge2k » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 2:37 AM UTC

SamReidHughes wrote: post #372

Practicality wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"at least two people that are unquestionably in the top 0.01% of math ability." To whom are you referring to, if I may ask, and what do they do? (I would just like to learn about them)

cperciva and michaelochurch (not listed on /leaders because he hasn't posted in a while), and it's easy enough to look up what they do.

> cperciva

He won the putnam once right?

> michaelochurch

banned for calling Marissa Meyer a nasty name. I'm sure he thinks he is 0.01% in most abilities.

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

#414

Post by Bakary » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 2:43 AM 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.

Are you more interested in making games themselves or being known as an influential designer in the future?

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

#415

Post by Bakary » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 2:49 AM UTC

yolesaber wrote: post #275

Jimmy wrote: post #11

I get quite depressed when I read articles like this. I'm resentful of the fact that my early academic performance was merely above average, rather than exceptional. Some days I feel confident in my abilities and my plans for the future; other days, I fear that it's already too late for me to accomplish anything of note.

In my college class there were two kids I would call absolute geniuses, possibly the smartest folk I have ever met. One wrote his senior thesis his second year there (on compilers and type theory) and another was a young philosophy transfer student from Deep Springs who regularly owned and outwitted professors in class to such a degree that rumors abounded he would be offered a faculty position after graduating. And…

I won't ever know how people like that process the world but my guess is that they are attuned to the sheer horror of it in a way that most people can't conceive of, and aren't able to distract themselves from this with other pursuits. Following this taking their own lives becomes the only solution they can envision.

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

#416

Post by SamReidHughes » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 2:55 AM UTC

serge2k wrote: post #413

SamReidHughes wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cperciva and michaelochurch (not listed on /leaders because he hasn't posted in a while), and it's easy enough to look up what they do.

> cperciva He won the putnam once right? > michaelochurch banned for calling Marissa Meyer a nasty name. I'm sure he thinks he is 0.01% in most abilities.

He is in math, see the results of the 1999 USAMO. He's a fantastic writer, too.

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

#417

Post by balabaster » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 2:56 AM UTC

ZenoArrow wrote: post #393

AStellersSeaCow wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hard work is overrated. What you really want is curiosity. This is BS, and the kind of BS that results in lazy entitled adults expecting the world to be their oyster because they have kept their dreamer curiosity intact. Out of the people I've know who are internationally-recognized academics and/or world-class engineers, many are both hard working and creative. Probably the majority of them, in fact. But many more…

> "they doggedly pursue single lines of inquiry or development, and possibilities for truly new ideas or techniques" This could easily be attributed to curiosity. Don't dismiss curiosity as something wishy-washy. As I said before, the mindset between hardworking and curious is different. That's not to say pursuing curiosity takes no effort. I'll use a musician analogy to explain. A hardworking musician works hard to…

> Hard work is driven by ego

I have a sample size of one that says this is false. For me at least, hard work comes from one of a number of things, none of which are ego.

1. The desire to deliver what I set out to deliver by the deadline I promised. I made a promise and I was raised that a man is only as good as his word. So unless you have a compelling reason why delivery is not an option, you see it through.

2. The desire for the satisfaction of looking at something that will pay future dividends, like learning to grow my own food takes hard work now, but at the end of it, I have a garden full of "free" food. Edit: On reflection, this one may be the most likely candidate for being ego - the ability to stand back and say proudly "I did that"... I will concede, this is probably ego.

3. The desire to master something I haven't yet mastered that either satisfies my fascination or because understanding it will enhance or simplify my life in the future - like small engine repair. I could easily take it to a shop and have them do it, but I'd rather learn how to do it myself because down the road there may be no shop nearby or I may just have to make do and improvise. If I don't work hard and spend the time and effort to understand the fundamentals and principles that make it all work, I wouldn't stand a chance.

So hard work isn't always about ego. The hard work may be fueled by curiosity, or it may be fueled by necessity. Certainly curiosity makes the hard work seem more like play than work, but that doesn't make it any less work. It just means that you don't realize how much effort you're putting in and it really just feels like an amusing way of playing or wasting time, but it's still work.

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

#418

Post by Bakary » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 2:56 AM UTC

bloaf wrote: post #214

gbog wrote: post #36

It seems weird to me that nobody seems to see the evidence: as a parent you just want your kids to be happy. Happy in the correct way, which means long-term happiness, built with good cultural background, reasonable social skills, constructive hobbies, ability to have some of those good friends, etc. Most of these are not achieved if you're kid is "super smart". Being the father of Einstein is probably very good for…

This is certainly true, but there is another way to think about it. If you suspect that some kid (including your own) will be likely to make some moderate-scale positive contribution to the world (e.g. invention of the telephone) do you have some moral obligation to ensure that the kid has the training, resources, and encouragement to do so? Essentially, can you weigh the potential benefits to humanity against that c…

In theory this is an interesting argument bit I feel that in practice it relies on too much hypothetical thinking. There's no way to predict what such a contribution might even look like in our era.

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

#419

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 3:13 AM UTC

spdionis wrote: post #5

> Pioneering mathematicians Terence Tao and Lenhard Ng were one-percenters, as were Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and musician Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga), who all passed through the Hopkins centre. Didn't expect Lady Gaga to be listed although it confirms one of my pet theories. It has long been my opinion that success in STEM fields correlates with general high intelligence which will…

[deleted]

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

#420

Post by RhysU » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 3:39 AM UTC

Practicality wrote: post #105

This article is a bit of a mess regarding who it is talking about. It hops around and changes it's target constantly. Sometimes it is talking about people in the .01%, AKA, 1 in 10000, so actual geniuses. Sometimes discussing people in the above average range, IQ of 120+, which is about 10% of the population (depending on your test), as well as people in gifted programs, which again, depending on your test is the top…

> The article seems to say that they just need to skip grades.

+1 for skipping. Mentally, socially, and physically challenging.