Why Some People Are Impossibly Talented

(Paraphrased) “And they hated him because he spoke the truth.”

This is a remarkable claim, so I set out to find out if it's justified, or yet another mis-interpreted statistic in a pop science article. I'm leaning towards the latter. The vague phrasing of "studies have found" immediately makes me suspicious.

Google first led me to the book "The Polymath: Unlocking the Power of Human Versatility" by Waqas Ahmed, mentioned in this article (a submarine?), which contains this paragraph:

> "According to a study by American psychologist Bernice Eiduson titled the 'Sigma Xi Survey' based on testimonials by numerous Nobel laureates, most great scientists often have multiple avocational interests. In-depth analysis of Nobel laureates in literature between 1901 and 2002 found that great artists and writers often have multiple avocational interests. He found that the science laureates were highly accomplished outside the lab: more than half had at least one artistic avocation, and almost all had an enduring hobby, from chess to insect collecting; one quarter were musicians; and 18% practiced visual arts such as drawing or painting. These laureates are 25 times as likely as the average scientist to sing, dance, or act; ..."

I was not able to find a specific "Sigma Xi Survey". I assume the title is a reference to Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society [1]. I don't know when or how this particular Survey was given, or where the results were published.

I did find several other publications by a Dr. Bernice Eiduson, all from the 1960's. Then I discovered that she (not "he") died in 1985 [2], and therefore probably wasn't doing much analysis of Nobel laureates in 2002.

The link just before this claim in the BBC article is to a 2004 paper, "Artistic Scientists and Scientific Artists: the Link Between Polymathy and Creativity", by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein. This paper seems to be unmentioned in "The Polymath" book, but is perhaps another part of the claim, as its Table 1 and Table 2 are about "NOBEL LAUREATES IN LITERATURE, 1901--2002".

The only mention in this paper of dancing with respect to any science laureates is Table 4: "Frequency of Arts Avocations in Chemistry Nobel Prize Winners Compared with Sigma Xi Members" -- "DANCING" is a big "0" in both cases. Where are all these dancing Nobel scientists they're alluding to? And the table doesn't mention singing at all.

Table 3 is "Hobbies X Citation Cluster for Scientists of the Eiduson Study", which sounds promising but doesn't mention dancing or acting at all.

Is it possible to substantiate the 25x claim? It's really starting to seem like a made-up statistic, and an excuse to sell books. Out of all the alleged singing, dancing, acting scientists, they picked two photographs of Einstein playing the violin. Where's the rest?

And if the first pull quote I chose to check is so emphatic yet so difficult to confirm, what confidence do I have that any of the rest of it is true? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_Xi [2]: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-08-10-fi-3906-s...

(Do the Snopes researchers read HN, or BBC?)