Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored • Hacker News Board

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#331

Post by ajsnigrutin » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 11:12 PM UTC

DantesKite wrote: post #322

I read the article. I disagree with the premise that there are fewer geniuses today. There are plenty of geniuses, if not more than ever. They just don't all have a deep, cultural impact on the zeitgeist. Take for example the resolution of Fermat's Last Theorem and Poincare's Conjecture. Or the work being done on the Twin Primes problem. This article is probably better situated as an examination of culture. You could…

The other thing is, that there is not much of basic math and physics left anymore for people to study and figure out something new.

Archimedes' buoyancy, newtons laws, etc. are all something that we know and learn about in elementary and high schools, and we remember their names, because they were either first to figure it out or more realistically, first to put it in writing in a way, that we can now use in "math/physics". Since the elementary to highschool curriculum is limited, we learn only "basic" stuff there, and most of that was attributed to historical physicists/mathematicians.

Now, in modern times, it is hard to invent anything "by yourself" (you need to work at a college and/or institute, to get access to proper equipment and mentors), and even when you discover something new, the discovery is so far away from "basic" math/physics, that the only ones who read the article and understand it are other mathetmaticians and physicists, kids will never learn about you, because the science is too advanced, and even when something attracts the mainstream media (to make you famous), the media then published that "scientists prove good exists" (the famous "god particle"), or worse.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#332

Post by JJMcJ » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 11:12 PM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #203

wcarron wrote: post #192

I think the author has got it mainly correct. There exists a perfect analog to this 'genius problem' in plain sight: Architecture. Back in the day, especially the art-deco era, buildings were adorned with beautiful facades and friezes and carvings. They had style and substance and actual design. Today, all you get are construction companies shitting out glass-paned bricks with shoddy materials, poor usability conside…

Back in 2010, I was invited to a party in a building down at the south end of Manhattan. We were 4 blocks from Wall Street. It was a new building, my friend had just moved in. The building was for the "$400,000 a year working stiffs" of Wall Street, but that line is from 1987 (the movie Wall Street) and nowadays they all make a few million a year. I was surprised by the relatively poor quality of the building. All th…

This is a standard complaint about McMansions out in the suburbs.

Appallingly poor workmanship, and everything looks like it was bought on sale at a second tier do it yourself store.

And who would glue carpet to a wall and call it luxury?

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#333

Post by nathias » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 11:13 PM UTC

Classical education was incomparable to what we get today, we are all completely uncultured.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#334

Post by ghaff » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 11:15 PM UTC

adamisom wrote: post #313

mcguire wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not particularly impressed with the quality of the article. The first question that comes to my mind that the article doesn't address is, how many geniuses did humanity miss because education was very, very limited. Second thought: history shows that the vast majority of aristocratically tutored students were very much not geniuses; this article is full of cherry-picking. Third, there's the "Where's Todays Beetho…

A two-sigma effect is mind blowing. You can say that makes it more suspect but the magnitude of the claim must be emphasized, that’s just so frickin high of an effect size. (Personally I assume the claim is at least mostly true: how could full-time, good tutoring not be incredibly better?)

One does have to deal with the social aspects--not that all scoial aspect of secondary school are positive. But it seems obvious that 1:1 tutoring is generally positive beyond the cost. Certainly I got a lot out of independent study classes in grad school (and to a lesser degree undergrad).

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#335

Post by ZephyrBlu » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 11:18 PM UTC

N1H1L wrote: post #312

I am a researcher at a national lab. I am pretty smart myself, and have worked with some exceptional people during my PhD and even now. Thing is, we have become so metrics and busy work obsessed that it's insane. Fully 75% of my time is spent chasing money. Which means writing grants that have a 25% success rate (and I am told to be proud of that number, others have it worse), filling out monthly, quarterly and yearl…

When I read the article I thought about this in terms of the school system as well. There is so much you need to do only to get to the next "level" in the system, which makes it difficult to innovate or explore outside of that.

To me, it seems like the aristocratic tutoring gave those people the opportunity to work outside the system.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#336

Post by hyperpallium2 » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

There's a role for truly domain-expert tutors (who deeply understand the material, not "expert at teaching"), but who will pay the correct price to lure them from every other profession? It doesn't scale because necessarily personalized (to address the subtle misunderstandings particular to this student)... so probably isn't the best use of the tutor.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#337

Post by vlovich123 » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 11:31 PM UTC

hyperpallium2 wrote: post #336

There's a role for truly domain-expert tutors (who deeply understand the material, not "expert at teaching"), but who will pay the correct price to lure them from every other profession? It doesn't scale because necessarily personalized (to address the subtle misunderstandings particular to this student)... so probably isn't the best use of the tutor.

There is one use case which is pairing them with the most promising pupils.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#338

Post by ascar » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 11:32 PM UTC

defgeneric wrote: post #155

The quality of this thread is really disappointing. Conservatively, about 80% of the replies, criticisms, suggestions, re-framings, here are addressed in the article by the author. About 20% of the replies here are responding to the title alone (and therefore focused on Einstein/progress in hard science). The piece is about the kind of education the children of the aristocracy received and how it has disappeared enti…

I don't see the author addressing most obvious criticism. There is no definition of genius. He mentions a lack of ideas, but doesn't talk about the effect that every field is much more specialized. You won't make advances in physics on the level of Newton or Kelvin. "The basics are covered" (with all the caveats that apply to this statement). He also ignores the pure genius that went into developing computing and the internet. Or the breakthrough that made our flat screens today possible that display digital information to us in the first place, like the invention of blue LEDs as a major scientific/engineering breakthrough. There are countless examples with an immense global impact, but the names of the inventors are barely known outside of their field.

The more specialized we get the less likely everyone will learn about it in general education and thus the inventor/genius will be less renowned. That doesn't make it less of a breakthrough or less genius. The article doesn't address this at all.

Further, there are many counter examples of genius that wasn't privately/aristocraticly tutored like Richard Feynman. For his point to stand there must be more privately tutored geniuses than non-privately tutored geniuses and today less intensive private tutoring. He doesn't have data for either of these prerequisites.

I found the whole article and reasoning quite lacking right from the premise.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#339

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 11:36 PM UTC

hyperpallium2 wrote: post #336

There's a role for truly domain-expert tutors (who deeply understand the material, not "expert at teaching"), but who will pay the correct price to lure them from every other profession? It doesn't scale because necessarily personalized (to address the subtle misunderstandings particular to this student)... so probably isn't the best use of the tutor.

[deleted]

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#340

Post by ZephyrBlu » Wed, Mar 16, 2022, 11:36 PM UTC

rvieira wrote: post #42

If we consider Einstein as a "10x scientist", I for one, I'm glad that society is realising that it's better collectively to increase slightly the performance/achievements of 10 scientists than relying on a single "10x" one for innovation.

Results are non-linear. A 10x-er will produce results that 10 1x-ers can't. It's only "better" in the sense it's more "fair", not that it produces better results.