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13 January 2011 Is there a genius in all of us?
Those who think geniuses are born and not made should think again, says author David Shenk.
Where do athletic and artistic abilities come from? With phrases like "gifted musician", "natural athlete" and "innate intelligence", we have long assumed that talent is a genetic thing some of us have and others don't.
But new science suggests the source of abilities is much more interesting and improvisational. It turns out that everything we are is a developmental process and this includes what we get from our genes.
A century ago, geneticists saw genes as robot actors, always uttering the same lines in exactly the same way, and much of the public is still stuck with this old idea. In recent years, though, scientists have seen a dramatic upgrade in their understanding of heredity.
They now know that genes interact with their surroundings, getting turned on and off all the time. In effect, the same genes have different effects depending on who they are talking to.
Born to be a footballer?
Malleable
"There are no genetic factors that can be studied independently of the environment," says Michael Meaney, a professor at McGill University in Canada.
"And there are no environmental factors that function independently of the genome. [A trait] emerges only from the interaction of gene and environment."
This means that everything about us - our personalities, our intelligence, our abilities - are actually determined by the lives we lead. The very notion of "innate" no longer holds together.
"In each case the individual animal starts its life with the capacity to develop in a number of distinctly different ways," says Patrick Bateson, a biologist at Cambridge University.
"The individual animal starts its life with the capacity to develop in a number of distinctly different ways. Like a jukebox, the individual has the potential to play a number of different developmental tunes. The particular developmental tune it does play is selected by [the environment] in which the individual is growing up."
Is it that genes don't matter? Of course not. We're all different and have different theoretical potentials from one another. There was never any chance of me being Cristiano Ronaldo. Only tiny Cristiano Ronaldo had a chance of being the Cristiano Ronaldo we know now.
But we also have to understand that he could have turned out to be quite a different person, with different abilities. His future football magnificence was not carved in genetic stone.
Doomed
This new developmental paradigm is a big idea to swallow, considering how much effort has gone into persuading us that each of us inherits a fixed amount of intelligence, and that most of us are doomed to be mediocre.
The notion of a fixed IQ has been with us for almost a century. Yet the original inventor of the IQ test, Alfred Binet, had quite the opposite opinion, and the science turns out to favour Binet.
"Intelligence represents a set of competencies in development," said Robert Sternberg from Tufts University in the US in 2005, after many decades of study.
Talent researchers Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Kevin Rathunde and Samuel Whalen agree.
"High academic achievers are not necessarily born 'smarter' than others," they write in their book Talented Teenagers, "but work harder and develop more self-discipline."
James Flynn of the University of Otago in New Zealand has documented how IQ scores themselves have steadily risen over the century - which, after careful analysis, he ascribes to increased cultural sophistication. In other words, we've all gotten smarter as our culture has sharpened us.
Most profoundly, Carol Dweck from Stanford University in the US, has demonstrated that students who understand intelligence is malleable rather than fixed are much more intellectually ambitious and successful.
The same dynamic applies to talent. This explains why today's top runners, swimmers, bicyclists, chess players, violinists and on and on, are so much more skilful than in previous generations.
All of these abilities are dependent on a slow, incremental process which various micro-cultures have figured out how to improve. Until recently, the nature of this improvement was merely intuitive and all but invisible to scientists and other observers.
Soft and sculptable
But in recent years, a whole new field of "expertise studies", led by Florida State University psychologist Anders Ericsson, has emerged which is cleverly documenting the sources and methods of such tiny, incremental improvements.
Bit by bit, they're gathering a better and better understanding of how different attitudes, teaching styles and precise types of practice and exercise push people along very different pathways.
Does your child have the potential to develop into a world-class athlete, a virtuoso musician, or a brilliant Nobel-winning scientist?
It would be folly to suggest that anyone can literally do or become anything. But the new science tells us that it's equally foolish to think that mediocrity is built into most of us, or that any of us can know our true limits before we've applied enormous resources and invested vast amounts of time.
Our abilities are not set in genetic stone. They are soft and sculptable, far into adulthood. With humility, with hope, and with extraordinary determination, greatness is something to which any kid - of any age - can aspire.
How a London cabbie's brain grows
London cabbies famously navigate one of the most complex cities in the world.
In 1999, neurologist Eleanor Maguire conducted MRI scans on their brains and compared them with the brain scans of others.
In contrast with non-cabbies, experienced taxi drivers had a greatly enlarged posterior hippocampus - that part of the brain that specialises in recalling spatial representations.
What's more, the size of cabbies' hippocampi correlated directly with each driver's experience: the longer the driving career, the larger the posterior hippocampus.
That showed that spatial tasks were actively changing cabbies' brains. This was perfectly consistent with studies of violinists, Braille readers, meditation practitioners, and recovering stroke victims.
Our brains adapt in response to the demands we put on them.
David Shenk is the author of The Genius in All of Us.
Posts: 1365 | Registered: Dec 2010
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Our brains adapt in response to the demands we put on them.
Interesting article but not persuasive enough for me. I don't believe everyone has the capacity to be an Oppenheimer or George Carver simply because they haven't put their mind to it. If they ''put their minds to it'' then why can't everyone *be*? Is it simply because they haven't asked their brain to *do* it?
Then if they *haven't* asked their brain to *do* it then what holds them back?
I say this keeping in mind that a lot of people *can* be more than they are but even in this group some will necessarily fall short of the mark because they can't be.
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
Of course the article isn't saying that by taking thought we can learn more efficiently and pioneers at whatever it is we do.
They make the comparison with sports too. (Soccer)
The brain is a muscle just like any other muscle -- it has to be worked right.
Geniuses are born -- the given. And they're made.
quote:A century ago, geneticists saw genes as robot actors, always uttering the same lines in exactly the same way, and much of the public is still stuck with this old idea. In recent years, though, scientists have seen a dramatic upgrade in their understanding of heredity.
They now know that genes interact with their surroundings, getting turned on and off all the time. In effect, the same genes have different effects depending on who they are talking to.
Really, that anyone would argue this is sad. This is almost like: "Scientists have essentially discovered that when you smoke weed, you get high".
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
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It would be folly to suggest that anyone can literally do or become anything.
...and:
But the new science tells us that it's equally foolish to think that mediocrity is built into most of us
I believe it is a given when I said:
''I say this keeping in mind that a lot of people *can* be more than they are but even in this group some will necessarily fall short of the mark because they can't be.''
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Grumman: I say this keeping in mind that a lot of people *can* be more than they are but even in this group some will necessarily fall short of the mark because they can't be.
taking things out of context! Posts: 89 | From: no blood-pressure | Registered: Nov 2010
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"High academic achievers are not necessarily born 'smarter' than others," they write in their book Talented Teenagers, "but work harder and develop more self-discipline."
Contextually then these students were just ''lazy'' then realized they could jack up their IQ far surpassing their initial laziness?
Most profoundly, Carol Dweck from Stanford University in the US, has demonstrated that students who understand intelligence is malleable rather than fixed are much more intellectually ambitious and successful.
Since intelligence is malleable do you believe the malleability will never cease? Are you saying the sky's the limit on this?
The same dynamic applies to talent. This explains why today's top runners, swimmers, bicyclists, chess players, violinists and on and on, are so much more skilful than in previous generations.
BigBangboogie, do you think a 100 metre sprinter will ever get under 8.58 seconds? The present record is 9.58. It's taken 100 years to get a second shaved off, or nearly so. You don't think physics has anything to say about this?
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
^ I believe ANYTHING is possible in this reality we SEEM to be living in.
Posts: 89 | From: no blood-pressure | Registered: Nov 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Whatbox: Of course the article isn't saying that by taking thought we can learn more efficiently and pioneers at whatever it is we do.
They make the comparison with sports too. (Soccer)
The brain is a muscle just like any other muscle -- it has to be worked right.
Geniuses are born -- the given. And they're made.
quote:A century ago, geneticists saw genes as robot actors, always uttering the same lines in exactly the same way, and much of the public is still stuck with this old idea. In recent years, though, scientists have seen a dramatic upgrade in their understanding of heredity.
They now know that genes interact with their surroundings, getting turned on and off all the time. In effect, the same genes have different effects depending on who they are talking to.
Really, that anyone would argue this is sad. This is almost like: "Scientists have essentially discovered that when you smoke weed, you get high".
So you reckon geniuses are made by stressing the brain? That is interesting and I read something like this in the book " Magical Child " a while ago
In what manner though would you stress the brain? psychological shock or just "tough" aptitude tests? and how do you know how far to push it?
Posts: 89 | From: no blood-pressure | Registered: Nov 2010
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''I believe ANYTHING is possible in this reality we SEEM to be living in.''
It didn't take you long to come out did it.
Don't worry you have a lot of closet sympathizers on this site but they won't admit it. No to worry though I think outside the box sometimes; mine however is more of a human history probably millions of years back into the past regardless what mainstream says with their paltry couple of hundred thousand years.
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
You said: ''I believe ANYTHING is possible in this reality we SEEM to be living in.''
You highlighted ''ANYTHING'' and ''SEEM.'' So just how much of those two words carry weight with you? Or are you just frustrated because the world we know *is* a very strange place and you, me, nor anyone else knows what's going on.
I'm willing to bet you look at the alternative side of things.
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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Babies love stories and nursery rhymes that have "characters" and "personalities" in them. All you need to do is get the ball rollin and kids become curious as heck.
But really, they don't even need to be curious. Their mind just needs to be stimulated. And it's not all about some grade in a set number of rigid subject matter that anyone could ace if they put their mind to it. But then again maybe they should be *made* or otherwise enticed somehow to ace their standard classes or whatever you have them do to teach them the value of hard work.
Speaking of kiddies, heard about the Wonder twins?
Nigerians seem bright like the Sun
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by BiGBANGBOOGIE: So you reckon geniuses are made by stressing the brain? That is interesting and I read something like this in the book " Magical Child " a while ago
In what manner though would you stress the brain? psychological shock or just "tough" aptitude tests? and how do you know how far to push it?
Come to think of it i am AGAINST high levels of stress on the brain in all cases leave for maybe before a test or other taxing thing of some sort. In fact, though such levels of stress can be good for tests, it is before those tests that you are supposed to relax yourself from the subject a little bit and try and flow to and distract yourself with other things.
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by vwwvv: [QB] 13 January 2011 Is there a genius in all of us?
Those who think geniuses are born and not made should think again, says author David Shenk.
Where do athletic and artistic abilities come from? With phrases like "gifted musician", "natural athlete" and "innate intelligence", we have long assumed that talent is a genetic thing some of us have and others don't....
The same dynamic applies to talent. This explains why today's top runners, swimmers, bicyclists, chess players, violinists and on and on, are so much more skillful than in previous generations.
the author is using the word "genius" very loosely.
A top performer is not the same thing as a genius. Obviously a world class athlete or man world class classical musicians are not geniuses.
A genius is somebody who has original ideas. This is mainly genetic.
A world class performer such as an athlete or concert violinist usually has usually had the essential opportunity to practice what they do for several hours a day for approximately a ten year sustained period when they were relatively young.
This approximate 10 year period of intense skill development is usually what is necessary.
Geniuses sometimes have world class performance skills but sometimes do not.
It is assumed that anybody could become a world class performer of some type if not tall enough to be a basketball player then a concert pianist or a world class pool player.
However there may also be a genetic factor in having the makeup to focus one skill for sustained periods of time.
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