Helen Lewis delivers a sharp, funny analysis of our obsession with "brilliant" men, showing that behind every individual genius is a crowd and a big PR machine.
I think Nick is confusing intelligence with expertise at one point. The data really does back up that if you're "intelligent" in math, you're also much more likely to be "intelligent" in language, too. There's almost no evidence to support the existence of domain intelligences. However, that raw "intelligence" does not give you the experience necessary to solve problems in any domain. It probably just gives you a leg up in learning the domain-specific knowledge to be an expert. We shouldn't be listening to research mathematicians or award-winning songwriters about how to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict, primarily because they have no expertise in international relations, not because of some unapplied measure of intelligence potential.
While obviously true in a strict sense, it’s the kind of idea championed by those without creative intelligence. “Geniuses”are outliers, and the prevailing powers in the US are currently methodically erasing outliers through all sorts of emergent and designed processes. Ideas like “there is no such thing as a genius” get telegraphed to validate this corruption. Hard right hates genius because it challenges the power structure, and the hard left hates it because it is… unfair? The motivation is stability, the reasoning is envy.
I think Nick is confusing intelligence with expertise at one point. The data really does back up that if you're "intelligent" in math, you're also much more likely to be "intelligent" in language, too. There's almost no evidence to support the existence of domain intelligences. However, that raw "intelligence" does not give you the experience necessary to solve problems in any domain. It probably just gives you a leg up in learning the domain-specific knowledge to be an expert. We shouldn't be listening to research mathematicians or award-winning songwriters about how to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict, primarily because they have no expertise in international relations, not because of some unapplied measure of intelligence potential.
While obviously true in a strict sense, it’s the kind of idea championed by those without creative intelligence. “Geniuses”are outliers, and the prevailing powers in the US are currently methodically erasing outliers through all sorts of emergent and designed processes. Ideas like “there is no such thing as a genius” get telegraphed to validate this corruption. Hard right hates genius because it challenges the power structure, and the hard left hates it because it is… unfair? The motivation is stability, the reasoning is envy.