
The Wrong Way to Treat Child Geniuses - wallflower
http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-wrong-way-to-treat-child-geniuses-1401484790
======
cperciva
Good article. A few minor points:

 _[prodigies] are not given a lot of opportunities in schools that are
designed for typically developing kids_

... nor should they be. I was learning calculus in elementary school and
writing the Putnam in high school. No matter how hard they tried, there's no
way the schools I was enrolled in could have given me those opportunities.
What prodigies need it not opportunities _in_ school, but rather schools which
are flexible enough to let them access opportunities _outside of_ school -- in
my case, starting my days at Simon Fraser University and packing my high
school courses into the afternoon.

 _Those of us who managed sky-high SAT scores at 13 were 20 times as likely as
the average American to get a doctorate; let 's say, being charitable, that
we're 100 times as likely to make a significant scientific advance. Since
we're only 1 in 10,000 of the U.S. population, that still leaves 99% of
scientific advances to be made by all those other kids who didn't get an early
ticket to the genius club. We geniuses aren't going to solve all the riddles.
Most child prodigies are highly successful — but most highly successful people
weren't child prodigies._

This is probably the most important paragraph in the article. The numbers are
unsupported, but I don't think they're so far off as to invalidate the point.

 _It isn 't exactly wrong to say that Terry Tao and other former prodigies
like him are geniuses. But it is more accurate to say that what they
accomplished was genius. Genius is a thing that happens, not a kind of
person._

Genius is both a noun and an adjective describing some people. It's a shame
that Dr. Ellenberg felt it necessary to end an otherwise good article with
such a piece of pithy nonsense.

~~~
Retric
Genius is poorly defined. Take all the different ways someone can qualify and
you end up with something far more common than people assume.

EX: Apparently, Einstein was an ok chess player and Oppenheimer sucked. Yet,
chess prodigy's are often called geniuses even if that's the only thing there
particularity good at.

Businesses, Language, Math, Music, Go, Chess, IQ tests, Poetry, Physics, Early
development, and Sculpture don't really have all that much in common. In the
end it's much more meaningful to say someone is a _ genius than simply calling
them a genius because g is closer to a myth than reality.

~~~
cperciva
_Businesses, Math, Music, Go, Chess, IQ tests, Poetry, Physics, Early
development, and sculpture don 't really have all that much in common._

... except for the people who excel at them. The author of this article is a
mathematics professor _and_ an author. I'm a computer scientist _and_ a
violinist. And in my time reviewing entrance scholarship applications for my
alma mater, I don't think I've ever seen a student who excels in a single
academic field and has no other unusual talents or accomplishments.

~~~
Retric
It takes more to be outstanding as you get older, so a 10 year old can be
outstanding in several of them. And a collage student may keep up with 3 or 4.

However, none of the worlds best people in any of those, as in top 5, is also
the worlds best any in any of the others. Not to step on anyone toes here.
Michael Jordan was an incredible baseball player as in better than 99.99% of
everyone that has ever played the game and by the 1:10,000 concept he may have
been a dual genius, but that was not enough to be outstanding at the top
level. And that is for two vary closely related sports.

So sure you can be outstanding in 2 or 3 of them but good luck finding people
that can play at even just the professional level in Go, Physics, Sculpture,
AND Poetry.

PS: My point is that collectively they don't share much in common. The Music /
Math link while strong is not the same as the Music / Sculpture link.

~~~
r-s
I agree with your post, however, there are exceptions. While Jordan didn't
have the best baseball career, Bo Jackson did excellent in both football and
baseball.

~~~
sokoloff
Bo Jackson won't make the Hall of Fame in either of those sports, let alone
both.

IMO, making the Hall of Fame is one obvious/indisputable mark of someone who
is truly distinguished by excellence in the sport. (He did make the All Star &
Pro Bowl, but those are far less distinguished honors, with something like
5-10% of players making those teams each year. So, rather than being a "top 5"
type of mark, it's a "top 68" (baseball) and "top 110-ish" (football).)

------
wpietri
His point on grit really hits home for me.

As a kid, I was always in the 99th percentile of any standardized test. People
complimented me on being smart, but smart isn't something you can control, so
I learned tricks to maximize how smart I appeared. That included jumping in to
anything that came naturally to me and avoiding anything else. I basically
never learned to work at anything, to endure frustration, to sit with failure
and get past it.

People meant well, I agree with the author: the common notion of genius as
something innate and magical is toxic. By all means, make sure kids are
properly challenged. But we should do it for every kid.

~~~
ForHackernews
Absolutely agree with this. As a formerly precocious child, I'm still trying
to recover from quitting everything that din't come easily to me.

~~~
lispylol
The onset of frustration comes so much more quickly if you expect yourself NOT
to be frustrated.

------
hitchhiker999
Like quite a few on this site, I'm one of those kids.

I have a kid now, he's not going to be sent to a regular school. I wasted
about 30 years trying to work out what/how other people were thinking. School
wasn't a challenge, everyone in it was - so I initially focused on that.

They'll spend time trying not to offend people. (I really like people, and
want them to like me). It's really tiring and difficult to maintain a persona
that's compatible with the crowd. Is it even right to do that?

The smarter you are, the less people listen to the 'true' you (boring, being
annoying etc). My guess is being around 30% smarter than average is the sweet
spot.

They need a framework to cope with the entire inefficiency of everything in
society, and the apparent willingness of everyone around them to perpetuate
it.

They need to learn to let people they love be, even if it appears they are
walking off a cliff. That sucks.

Being smart is wonderful but it's not everything. It means things are easily
understandable to you. It doesn't mean you know everything, but it means you
can learn almost anything quickly.

If you want a PHD you can get one easily, it's like when you're really rich -
things have a different meaning. Many smart people I know don't care about
things like 'PHDs' \- infact, quite the opposite. Friends and family matter,
not PHDs.

TL;DR; IQ is one over-sold metric; teach your kids to be happy first.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> My guess is being around 30% smarter than average is the sweet spot.

As phrased, this is completely meaningless. What are you thinking of here? You
think people are best off at the 80th percentile?

~~~
brianmcc
I read this and thought: spot on. Smart enough to do well in life but not be
isolated through rarefied levels of intelligence, or excessively burdened by
awareness of the world's troubles, probably makes for a happy individual.

~~~
thaumasiotes
My issue is with the phrasing. There's no such concept as "30% smarter than
average", because there are no (known) intelligence _units_ that could
increase by 30%. Intelligence is measured relative to other people; we don't
have _any_ cardinal numbers for it. As such, saying "30% smarter than average"
makes exactly as much sense as saying "fg wnthmsz ijwklwe uagp whajqlx".

~~~
hitchhiker999
My apologies. I conveyed the meaning as best as I could, those who 'felt' the
concept where able to forgive the obvious inaccuracies inherent in any
statement such as that.

Also there is an average IQ (though a poor metric). The average is 100, a 30%
increase would be approximately 133 points.

"Intelligence tests are one of the most popular types of psychological tests
in use today. On the majority of modern IQ tests, the average (or mean) score
is set at 100 with a standard deviation of 15 so that scores conform to a
normal distribution curve. This means that 68 percent of scores fall within
one standard deviation of the mean (that is, between 85 and 115), and 95
percent of scores fall within two standard deviations (between 70 and 130)."

Therefore, roughly speaking - what I proposed is that being in the top 5% can
be either a blessing or (more easily) a serious impediment to a happy life.

------
tokenadult
A very good Saturday essay that two of my Facebook friends told me about, and
I'm glad to see that it was already submitted here, as it deserves a read from
all of us who have ever commented in threads about "genius" or "geniuses." And
the first two comments here, by kenjackson and j2kun, are very good too. What
Jordan Ellenberg, a member of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth,
writes about here is based on the extensive modern research on the development
of advanced young learners of mathematics and other subjects. I recently heard
a talk about this line of research by David Lubinski[1] (mentioned in the
article) and I have been following this research[2] for years.

Summing up the research, yes, it's good to be supportive rather than
oppositional to children developing their special talents in their youth. But
the most talented young people will not save the world. We will save the world
together through lots of incremental improvements, the kind of incremental
improvements we discuss here on Hacker News. Personality traits (one could
also say qualities of character) like curiosity and persistence matter quite
as much as raw brain power in allowing young people to gain the best
development from having good learning opportunities, and good learning
opportunities are important for all learners.

[1] [vid]
[http://mediasite.csom.umn.edu/Mediasite/Play/2eeb0fa1c5f6408...](http://mediasite.csom.umn.edu/Mediasite/Play/2eeb0fa1c5f6408cbf4afd7a248d0ced1d)

[2] Related articles: [https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/publications/david-
lubinski/](https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/publications/david-lubinski/)

------
nnq
I'd like one message to come across to all child-prodigies and precocious
geniuses: _You 're not a "rare natural resource", "human capital" or any other
such demeaning term. You're not responsible for solving ANY of the world's
problems: you don't have to cure cancer or AIDS, you don't have to extinguish
poverty, you don't have to solve the energy crisis. It's jut not your problem
if you don't WANT it to be. Do what YOU ENJOY and LIKE, forget about other
people's problems, forget even about the problems of your future selves! And
do take advantage of you "special" or "celebrity" status, use it to get money
and any unfair benefits you can get and waste them having fun. You're human
beings and you are only supposed to live for your own enjoyment! If you enjoy
helping others or solving the world's problems, do so. If not, fuck it all and
just have fun!_

~~~
jessriedel
> You're human beings and you are only supposed to live for your own
> enjoyment!

How does what you're advocating differ from pure selfishness (perhaps
restricted by the requirements to not to hurt others)?

~~~
habosa
Just to play devil's advocate here, most people actually do enjoy helping
others. If you're the rare person that doesn't like helping other people at
all, then it's probably a waste of my effort to try to make you. So "do what
you like to do" != "be selfish" in all cases.

~~~
jessriedel
So the advice is "help people whenever you feel like it"?

~~~
skj
Sounds like good advice.

------
kenjackson
This is a really good article. And the author is right that it is so easy to
feel like you should quit doing math or physics or CS, because you see that
person who is your age, that just seems better at it than you are.

What I have found really humbling in life is how many people have accomplished
so much more than I have, without my background. And if you look at the
resumes of folks like David Cutler, Linus Torvalds, Ed Witten, etc... these
folks didn't rise up through Olympiad events with the genius label their whole
life.

I know this is cliché, but it really does seem like building determination and
excitement is at least as important than simply pouring skills in child
geniuses.

~~~
wting
I don't have the citations on hand, but someone looked into the breakthroughs
scientists discovered in their 20's and those in later stages of their career.

The types of papers published from younger scientists (Einstein, Newton) were
more abstract, while those published from the older generation were those that
could only be realized from decades of hard work.

------
brandonhsiao
I feel the biggest thing differentiating child geniuses is that they get
things done on their own without being told to. They'll explore the world,
they'll naturally have a thirst for learning, etc. The worst thing you can do
to a kid like that is to give them the kind of "guidance" you give normal
children. They're fine on their own; it's pushing them into a structure that
screws them. But often the programs designed to coach genius children think of
coaching as the kind of help you'd give normal children.

I find it interesting that society thinks it's important to "guide" genius
children. A question I'd like to ask is: what exactly do these children lack
that we need to compensate with guidance? Children who get things done on
their own just need space.

~~~
Iftheshoefits
I don't agree with this at all. Having a high level of intellect doesn't mean
one has the worldly experience to navigate life's obstacles. These children,
intelligent as they are, are still children, and impressionable by adults
especially when they are young. All it takes is a few years in the early
period of development for a budding genius' potential to be clamped. There are
many reasons so many end up not doing well. I don't mean by merely the
financial measure as noted elsewhere in this thread, but across the board, in
that they end up not fulfilling their potential to achieve great things. For
some the biggest contributing factor is having one of many different kinds of
negative parental and adult influences at an early age.

------
j2kun
> Genius is a thing that happens, not a kind of person.

He saved the best quote for the end.

------
dfan
Some followup conversation in the comments at Ellenberg's blog:
[http://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/should-
andrew-...](http://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/should-andrew-
gelman-have-stayed-a-math-major/)

------
bane
I commented briefly here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7830507](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7830507)

But this really hit home for me

> One of the most painful aspects of teaching mathematics is seeing my
> students damaged by the cult of the genius. That cult tells students that
> it's not worth doing math unless you're the best at math—because those
> special few are the only ones whose contributions really count. We don't
> treat any other subject that way. I've never heard a student say, "I like
> 'Hamlet,' but I don't really belong in AP English—that child who sits in the
> front row knows half the plays by heart, and he started reading Shakespeare
> when he was 7!" Basketball players don't quit just because one of their
> teammates outshines them. But I see promising young mathematicians quit
> every year because someone in their range of vision is "ahead" of them.

Being identified as a child genius puts you into the unfortunate default
circumstance of always competing with everybody, instead of just competing
with yourself like you are supposed to do when learning and growing. You are
_supposed_ to be uniquely smart, and when other kids do something better than
you you start to question yourself.

Importantly, well meaning educators try to foster the areas you test as
exceptionally gifted in, when what they should be doing is teaching you how to
work through and overcome areas you are weaker in -- to achieve a better
cognitive balance. This can help the child break the "curse of being gifted",
where effortless achievement in one area becomes a kind of short-loop positive
feedback drug they focus all of their attention on and harder/less obvious
areas are ignored much to later detriment.

But it's almost never done, because it's assumed that since you're gifted in
one area you're gifted in them all and they'll just focus on the ones you test
the highest in. You've been given a magical spark, and they want to capture
that spark. The cruel irony is that quite often, the harder they work to grab
it, the faster it goes away.

I think one of the problems is that many of the educators responsible for
guiding exceptionally gifted children through all this were not themselves
exceptionally gifted and have a poor understanding and empathy for what it's
like to walk around with all this, often _very uneven_ , nascent intelligence.

I see from many of the comments here that other really bright kids were put in
competitive environments where scores and placements became a big focus of
their lives: SAT scores, Putnam, IQ scores...I'm sure most of us also did
state or regional competitions of some sort or another. The most important
thing I learned from all that when I was going through it was that "there's
_always_ somebody better than you so don't get all emotional when you have the
bad fortune to cross paths with them in the same competition."

Actually, the better lesson I learned was to not bother competing at all and
just focus one challenging myself. I'm already in the top 1-2% in whatever
narrow subject area according to some test, without any effort, why don't I
achieve competency in something I outright suck at? If I'm so smart, I should
be able to figure out how to attack and surmount any weakness I have.

I think that little philosophy has gotten me much farther than any of the
areas I was identified as being gifted in as a child.

~~~
read
_just focus on challenging myself_

That's a good lesson and its effectiveness is also supported by research.

[http://www.csulb.edu/~dthoman/Pubs/ThomanSmithSilvia2011.pdf](http://www.csulb.edu/~dthoman/Pubs/ThomanSmithSilvia2011.pdf)

As Heidi Grant Halvorson put it: focus on getting better rather than being
good.

------
WalterBright
I always wondered what happened to the child prodigies after they grew up.

~~~
michaelochurch
50th percentile outcome is mediocrity, depression, booze.

This isn't gloating at their expense, because I was one. This is a fucked-up
society and the "tallest nail" phenomenon ensures that most people like them
eventually reach a stage of life where they don't do well, and it's harder to
recover once that "golden child" image (untarnished success, monotonic
progress) is lost and the world would rather invest in someone else.

~~~
lacker
No way dude. 50th percentile has to be better than that. Go look up what
happened to your fellow moppers.

~~~
michaelochurch
Is it? I'd love to see some real data on this. For sure, some have succeeded.
But there have been a lot who've not done much (especially in academia, which
seems to tolerate laziness if you're smart).

Outside of academia, one who I know pretty well (he actually went to IMO, not
just MOP) was no-offered at two different hedge funds because of the "tallest
nail" phenomenon. When people found out that he'd attended IMO, there was a
certain glee with which his co-workers (at least, in one of those two firms)
made sure that he failed. After that, he was pretty much unhireable.

------
alanning
Has anyone here who is gifted with this level of ability looked into or
experienced a Montessori-style education? Perhaps for your children?

My two young children are currently enrolled in a Montessori school and I can
draw a lot of parallels between what the many gifted commenters here suggest
as a better way to teach and my understanding of the Montessori philosophy.

Emphasis on engendering self-directed learning, freedom to explore their
interests, avoidance of intelligence labels/praise such as "you're so smart",
etc.

------
rumcajz
What's the point on focusing on children with high test scores? If that's what
makes genius, the geniuses could -- and should -- be replaced by computers.

What makes a real genius is absolute honesty, willingness to re-evaluate their
core assumptions over and over again, not get deluded by ruling dogma etc.
Being able to multiply five digit numbers doesn't help with that.

------
burnte
I think this is a horrible article. His central argument is that the kids who
demonstrate exceptional intelligence have too much attention heaped upon them,
and discards the argument that in fact out school system fails these kids.
While I agree in part that it is easy to put too much pressure on these kids
by talking about their "potential" too much and pressuring them in directions
they may not actually want to go, the answer is not to simply treat them as
average.

He was part of the Vanderbilt University study of kids who score at least 700
on the verbal part of the SAT, or 630 in math, by age 13. I was part of the
Johns Hopkins program, which is now the Center for Talented Youth which has
similar requirements. he scored 800 on the math portion, 680 on verbal at age
12. I scored 800 on the verbal and 530 on the math at 12. He's a tenured math
professor and published author. I'm an IT consultant of 20 years and a
published author. I think I'm just as qualified to speak on behalf of this
group as he is.

Those kids are under-served by the school system to the point of failure or
near failure.He's completely right, talent isn't a number, but that number is
indicative on an innate skill for knowledge assimilation and synthesis that is
greater than average. Given the proper scholastic environment, these kids ARE
capable of more than most, and should be allowed to find their niche just as
much as the majority.

The problem, in my opinion, isn't that the school system is too rigidly skewed
towards the majority, or that there are bad teachers. On the contrary,
throughout my school career I've had a number of exceptional teachers that I
still admire, respect, and cherish my time with, even the ones with whom I
didn't necessarily get along with well (I was a jackass at times).

The school system had always seemed to me to be too cookie-cutter oriented,
and was very difficult for anyone who didn't fit the mold. I didn't fully
understand why until about 10 years ago when I read an article and then a book
by John Taylor Gotto. The article is "The Six Lesson Schoolhouse".
[http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html](http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html) is the
article. The book is "Dumbing Us Down" for sale here:
[http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-
Ann...](http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-
Anniversary/dp/0865714487) or at any good library.

The problem is the way the school system itself is structured. In the US,
we're utilizing a school system that was designed 150 years ago and hasn't
changed much since. We created this "modern" system during the industrial
revolution's sweep across America. As machines made farming orders of
magnitude more efficient, cities grew at an astounding rate, and industrial
jobs became the dominant employment sector. The need for rigorous schedules
became the norm with time zones and train schedules, and later with the
whistles and bells of assembly line manufacturing. Strict scheduling in
schools helped acclimate kids to the forthcoming work environment. It was a
great thing, and helped build a strong and well educated workforce.

As times changed, however, schools didn't. We acclimated to special needs kids
with attention or learning disorders, which is fantastic because we're able to
take these kids, and get then up to the level of their average counterparts,
and make them into productive members of society rather than ignoring and
shunning them. But we don't do nearly enough for the small fraction who are
highly gifted. We simply put them into "harder" or "higher level" classes than
their peers. This isn't an acceptable solution. We need to stimulate them, to
find out where their passions lie then feed them accordingly. Do they react
better to lectures, or readings? Do they react better to more solitary
studies, or in group environments? Do they need a standard amount of
repetition to help boost retention, or does that simply bore them and
artificially stunt their natural abilities?

Mr. Ellenberg is right that pressure is not the proper tool to make the most
of these young minds, but neither is pretending they're not exceptional, and
not giving them the opportunity to see exactly how far they can go.

~~~
kenjackson
_But we don 't do nearly enough for the small fraction who are highly gifted.
We simply put them into "harder" or "higher level" classes than their peers.
This isn't an acceptable solution. We need to stimulate them, to find out
where their passions lie then feed them accordingly. Do they react better to
lectures, or readings? Do they react better to more solitary studies, or in
group environments? Do they need a standard amount of repetition to help boost
retention, or does that simply bore them and artificially stunt their natural
abilities?_

We should do this for everyone. It's unclear to me why we should not find the
passion and best way to teach "average" students too.

The only difference between "gifted" and "average" students is really how
quickly they can learn certain material -- and maybe an increase in their
ceiling for learning certain material. But I don't think there is a
fundamental qualitative difference in how they should be taught.

~~~
sokoloff
Why don't we hand-tailor a bespoke educational curriculum and methods for each
student? Primarily, it's a cost issue; secondarily, it's an aptitude issue for
the educators. (My parents were both in public education, and some of what I
saw as a user and what they reported as members was utterly appalling.)

But, it's the cost issue that makes it a total non-starter. Very few school
districts will, across the board, be able to afford the teacher:student ratios
required by individualized, customized instruction processes for each student.

~~~
smm2000
If they could not afford to do custom-tailored program for average student,
why should they do it for gifted? Results of the survey shows that gifted kids
do alright in life, make more than average, get Ph.Ds, etc. Should schools
(and average Joe who pays for it) provide them with even more advantages?

~~~
waterlesscloud
Because society as a whole benefits more from the best being their best than
from the average being average.

~~~
smm2000
Best and brightest at 8-15 usually do not end up best and brightest in later
career. You can see it even in the fact that average salary of that cohort is
only 80k/year - only slightly better than average for ALL college graduates.
None of those geniuses are particularly impressive and most ended up doing the
same work with the same quality as the rest of us.

There was research that showed that IQ after 120 stops being correlated with
success - other factors start being more important.

~~~
shabadoop
Yeah, my supervisor for my undergrad thesis is a brilliant researcher who's
still publishing good work 20+ years into his career. He was just a normal
dude in undergrad who started in engineering but switched to math because he
disliked project management, and he certainly wasn't in any sort of "young
genius" program through grade school. But his PhD thesis was runner-up for
best in the country, he consistently presents at all the major conferences in
his field, and he has even won a few teaching awards.

------
kevinwang
Interesting article... but what really makes a prodigy? What's the difference
between a prodigy and a normal kid? Is it just a keener sense of curiosity, or
a greater interest in reading? Is it neurological? Is it environmental or
genetic or something else?

------
NAFV_P
Neurologists who study the brain's wiring are just as fascinated by the
missile guidance system that top table tennis players have behind their eyes
just as much as world class chess players.

------
boggled
The author laments the rate at which lesser math students leave mathematics,
because they are behind the very best.

    
    
      One of the most painful aspects of teaching mathematics is 
      seeing my students damaged by the cult of the genius. That 
      cult tells students that it's not worth doing math unless 
      you're the best at math—because those special few are the 
      only ones whose contributions really count. We don't treat 
      any other subject that way. ... But I see promising young 
      mathematicians quit every year because someone in their 
      range of vision is "ahead" of them.
    

But this is a rational calculation, precisely because mathematics is
institutionalized as a highly competitive discipline. If those who score high
on the SAT at 13 are 100 times as likely to make a scientific advance as those
in the remaining 99% of the population, then there should to be roughly 100
times the opportunity for lower scoring individuals to make those advances
than they currently have. But the jobs in academia aren't there. Students see
this and they make the rational decision to jump ship. (I was irrational and
did not.) The cult tells students that there are no jobs for you unless you
are the very best. And with fewer tenure track jobs in a dwindling, pedigree
conscious market, the cult is correct.

Grothendieck couldn't solve a Putnam problem, incidentally. Not a contest
winner. You might be interested to know what some Fields Medalists say about
some prominent prodigies. That they are extremely smart, but haven't done
truly major work. The facts and the gossip are no consolation: academic
opportunities are overwhelmingly and increasingly weighted in favor of the
prodigy.

Likewise, elite employers want to hire the math and programming contest
winners. Well, if you're not one of them, it is rational to select yourself
out. I've gotten calls from recruiters saying that I'd be working such winning
individuals. "Will I be doing the work they're doing?" "Uh, no, you'll be
doing system administration." "In that case, maybe you should hire a Nobel
Laureate. I am unworthy." Cleaning the digital bedpans of the superstars is
not my idea of success. "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven," as one
famous antagonist put it.

As long as the STEM subjects remain a zero-sum game, with the overwhelming
spoils going to the early bloomers, the winners, like the author, should be
satisfied with what they have already won in an unnecessarily and
destructively competitive field. The rest of us are doomed to provide them
support as members of the economic precariat at slave wages, if we are
foolhardy enough to remain in academia. There is no honor in adding to someone
else's power law distribution, and I urge the contest winners to hire Nobel
Laureates and other members of their own rank to do their support work, and
not add to their winnings by exploiting the unworthy persons they elbowed out.

(I did earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, incidentally. This was wasted effort. When
I was a toddler, apparently I impressed a child psychologist with my logic; my
mother told the woman that she was an idiot for thinking that I was advanced.
My experience in academia was not good--I was mostly exploited. I have decided
to abandon mathematics and computer science for art.)

~~~
mareofnight
Is that compared to the general population overall, or a subset? It might be
more informative to look at the subset that actually starts down the road of
making discoveries in mathematics - maybe just people who attempt bachelors'
degrees in math?

------
doctorKrieger
call me cynical but the only thing I expected when going to the comment
section was lament of people perceiving themselves as prodiges, and people
talking about smart people they know which focus on family.

------
randunel
Still hate websites which break the back button... good article otherwise.

