According to Shenk, we are erroneously led to believe that stars like Tiger Woods and cellist Yo-yo Ma were born to climb to the top of their fields, when in fact the environments they grew up in are just as responsible (if not more so) for their spectacular feats.
I would love to see this Shenk guy raise a Tiger Woods/Yo-yo Ma 2.0. Do that and you have an immensely more powerful argument, otherwise you're just another wave in the ocean.
She and her two older sisters, Grandmaster Susan and International Master Sofia, were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father László Polgár, in an attempt to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if trained in a specialist subject from a very early age. "Geniuses are made, not born," was László's thesis. He and his wife Klara educated their three daughters at home, with chess as the specialist subject. However, chess was not taught to the exclusion of everything else. Each of them has several diplomas and speaks four to eight languages. Their father also taught his three daughters the international language Esperanto.
So you're saying that László and Klara were poor genetic material?
This kind of anecdotal evidence means nothing. Undoubtedly these girls had great genes, in addition to being trained quite well. If both G and E are high, the product of the two is quite high.
I'd like to see him try this with a kid he adopted.
So you're saying that László and Klara were poor genetic material?
Where do you see me say anything of the kind?
No, what I would say is the myth of genius being a special constellation of traits that the gods bestow upon that rare soul, which can only be seen ex post facto, is false. High G is quite common. What isn't is a specially tuned E.
If someone known to be a mediocre chess player can thrice create chess grandmasters, then that is a strong argument, and frankly, anecdotal is about as good as you can get with this stuff.
I suppose if you're arguing for "genius" in the ex post facto sense, you could say "wow, what a coincidence that he had 3 children with that amazing chess grandmaster gene." To me, saying anyone with high G could be Einstein given the correct E says something very different about genius than the idea that Einstein was one of a kind and had some innate, unique genetic gift.
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According to Shenk, we are erroneously led to believe that stars like Tiger Woods and cellist Yo-yo Ma were born to climb to the top of their fields, when in fact the environments they grew up in are just as responsible (if not more so) for their spectacular feats.
I would love to see this Shenk guy raise a Tiger Woods/Yo-yo Ma 2.0. Do that and you have an immensely more powerful argument, otherwise you're just another wave in the ocean.
I would say László already won this argument:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r
She and her two older sisters, Grandmaster Susan and International Master Sofia, were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father László Polgár, in an attempt to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if trained in a specialist subject from a very early age. "Geniuses are made, not born," was László's thesis. He and his wife Klara educated their three daughters at home, with chess as the specialist subject. However, chess was not taught to the exclusion of everything else. Each of them has several diplomas and speaks four to eight languages. Their father also taught his three daughters the international language Esperanto.
So you're saying that László and Klara were poor genetic material?
This kind of anecdotal evidence means nothing. Undoubtedly these girls had great genes, in addition to being trained quite well. If both G and E are high, the product of the two is quite high.
I'd like to see him try this with a kid he adopted.
So you're saying that László and Klara were poor genetic material?
Where do you see me say anything of the kind?
No, what I would say is the myth of genius being a special constellation of traits that the gods bestow upon that rare soul, which can only be seen ex post facto, is false. High G is quite common. What isn't is a specially tuned E.
If someone known to be a mediocre chess player can thrice create chess grandmasters, then that is a strong argument, and frankly, anecdotal is about as good as you can get with this stuff.
I suppose if you're arguing for "genius" in the ex post facto sense, you could say "wow, what a coincidence that he had 3 children with that amazing chess grandmaster gene." To me, saying anyone with high G could be Einstein given the correct E says something very different about genius than the idea that Einstein was one of a kind and had some innate, unique genetic gift.