Genius: Inherent, or environmental factors?
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    Genius: Inherent, or environmental factors?

    The term genius refers to someone with extraordinary intellectual or creative power. Psychologists in the early 1900s were the first to measure and define genius in terms of a person's intelligence quotient (IQ).* The first genius IQ score was around 140. That's about one in every 250 people. However, this number is pretty much insignificant when you compare it with a standardized measurement of people that go above 200. In particular, mathematical genius Terence Tao scored a 760 (short of 800) on the mathematical portion of the SAT when he was 8 years old. Notably, he has contributed to fields such as dispersive partial differential equations, harmonic analysis, analytic number theory, and arithmetic combinatorics.

    This brings me up to the question of the day: do you believe being a genius is genetical, or is it the way a person is raised and their subsequent learning experience? Do you believe genius is determined by education, or is it a set limit the moment a person is born and determined by a genetical factor?

  2. ISO #2

    Re: Genius: Inherent, or environmental factors?

    Everyone's favorite answer: it's not one or the other, it's both at the same time! Some people are born with intellectual deficiencies, and that is very clear. It is not far-fetched to claim that since some people can have "sub-normal" intellectual performances due to innate factors, the opposite is also true. That being said, it's also clear that understimulating a child will cause him to perform less well than if he had been normally stimulated, or stimulated in an optimal manner. Thus, the answer is: both.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Lawyer View Post
    Besides your lamp and your refridgerators, do you find anyone else suspicious?
    Quote Originally Posted by oliverz144 View Post
    it looks like many, e.g. MM and lag, suffered under the influence of paopan. However there is a victim: frinckles. He left the path of rationality and fully dived into the parallel reality of baby shark, king shark, and soviet union pizzas.
    Spoiler : The meaning of life :

  3. ISO #3

    Re: Genius: Inherent, or environmental factors?

    So like, all sources I crossed have said that the origin of the word Genius is some spirit's name in Latin. But multiple sources have additionally said that it also means inborn nature or innate ability from Latin. Don't you guys feel odd about the thought of going beyond that, given that it's the word?

    Let's apply what MM said on a great example of being influence by environmental factors - little Misha the Chess genius:
    It's true that if his family was different, he might have never had picked up on Chess. His environment did steer him in that direction, but the fact that it did only made his innate talent come to bear. If he never picked up Chess, his innate ability would still be there (just obviously deteriorating over age).

    Btw, similarly to Helz's topic of The meaning of Intelligence - here too I believe that there's different types of genius, just like with intelligence. If anything, I'd say types of intelligence can and are affected by the environment. Though I must admit that it's a flimsy thing to say because in discussions about intelligence people also seem to talk about the inherent ability.

  4. ISO #4

    Re: Genius: Inherent, or environmental factors?

    Quote Originally Posted by WrathCyber View Post
    Psychologists in the early 1900s were the first to measure and define genius in terms of a person's intelligence quotient (IQ).
    Source plz?
    Ftr, if you believe that IQ = Genius, then this topic is irrelevant as you believe that Genius = inherent ability.

    Quote Originally Posted by Marshmallow Marshall View Post
    Everyone's favorite answer: it's not one or the other, it's both at the same time!
    Source plz?
    Last edited by OzyWho; March 21st, 2022 at 05:38 PM.

  5. ISO #5

    Re: Genius: Inherent, or environmental factors?

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    So like, all sources I crossed have said that the origin of the word Genius is some spirit's name in Latin. But multiple sources have additionally said that it also means inborn nature or innate ability from Latin. Don't you guys feel odd about the thought of going beyond that, given that it's the word?

    Let's apply what MM said on a great example of being influence by environmental factors - little Misha the Chess genius:
    It's true that if his family was different, he might have never had picked up on Chess. His environment did steer him in that direction, but the fact that it did only made his innate talent come to bear. If he never picked up Chess, his innate ability would still be there (just obviously deteriorating over age).

    Btw, similarly to Helz's topic of The meaning of Intelligence - here too I believe that there's different types of genius, just like with intelligence. If anything, I'd say types of intelligence can and are affected by the environment. Though I must admit that it's a flimsy thing to say because in discussions about intelligence people also seem to talk about the inherent ability.
    Your point about defining "genius" is a very good one. But if we just take "intelligence" in a very general meaning of "ability to understand realities and to make use of that understanding" (don't slap me for this definition, I made it up in 30 seconds), or in any meaning I could possibly think of, your example only proves my point, unless you want to define "genius" as "the innate potential of a person to understand realities and to make use of that understanding, independently from its actualization in reality", which is really just begging the question. Because if it's abiilty, then your chess genius couldn't have had any ability without the right environment.

    Also, this video is gold. So is the kid's face lol.
    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    Source plz?
    Ftr, if you believe that IQ = Genius, then this topic is irrelevant as you believe that Genius = inherent ability.


    Source plz?
    It's a joke based on the fact people usually are annoyed by this kind of answer :P
    Quote Originally Posted by The Lawyer View Post
    Besides your lamp and your refridgerators, do you find anyone else suspicious?
    Quote Originally Posted by oliverz144 View Post
    it looks like many, e.g. MM and lag, suffered under the influence of paopan. However there is a victim: frinckles. He left the path of rationality and fully dived into the parallel reality of baby shark, king shark, and soviet union pizzas.
    Spoiler : The meaning of life :

  6. ISO #6

    Re: Genius: Inherent, or environmental factors?

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    Source plz?
    Ftr, if you believe that IQ = Genius, then this topic is irrelevant as you believe that Genius = inherent ability.


    Source plz?
    Since you love sources so much, I'll link you to every source from now on.

    It is widely perceived that IQ is just a standardization measurement of a person's intelligence. However, my point was not to point out that IQ = Genius. Rather, does the person's intelligence stem from their natural born talent, or can it be replicated with careful learning over time (or in other words, nature vs. nurture). Anyways, funny you brought up Misha, because like all chess prodigies I believe Morphy to be the best example of what defines someone as having inherent ability.

    "According to his uncle, Ernest Morphy, no one formally taught Morphy how to play chess; rather, Morphy learned on his own as a young child simply from watching others play".

    It is interesting to note that Morphy never really had a "formal" education of sorts for chess. It was easy as breathing for him, and he honed his ability by playing against other formidable opponents. One could call him natural born with talent for chess.

    On the other hand, we have Fischer. Like Morphy, he was also a chess prodigy, and he proved this at age 14 where he won the 1958 U.S. Championship. However, unlike Morphy, Bobby spent 10 times as much time reading chess books then he did playing chess. (source). I'm sure you're familiar with this, including his infamous match against Russian World Champion Boris Spaasky
    at the famous world champion chess match in 1972 where Fischer beat Spaasky. The most prevalent example of Fischer's talent for studying is this match from Spaasky's book called Weltgeschichte Des Schachs Lieferung 27, where he infamously would, "Several times a week, at about 11 PM, [take] the red book and walk into the town to eat at the Triangle Lodge, a bar and grill.

    Fischer's capabilities here, I would argue is in direct opposite of someone such as Morphy who was simply born talented. Although it can be argued that Fischer was born cognitively abled as well, his talents come no where near the monstrosity of Morphy when their playstyles are juxtaposed. That is something I feel Fischer himself realized, which is why he fervently devoted himself to studying off of the endgames of Capablanca, Morphy, Lasker, and finally Spaasky in preparation for the match.

    Either by coincidence tragic fate, both met terrible deaths (most likely due to their nature).

  7. ISO #7

  8. ISO #8

    Re: Genius: Inherent, or environmental factors?

    Quote Originally Posted by WrathCyber View Post
    It is widely perceived that IQ is just a standardization measurement of a person's intelligence. However, my point was not to point out that IQ = Genius. Rather, does the person's intelligence stem from their natural born talent, or can it be replicated with careful learning over time (or in other words, nature vs. nurture).
    Is it genius or IQ or intelligence that you wish to talk about, or are they all 3 the same to you?

    I feel like I've done a fair share of looking up information (more like look up opinions of scientists) about people's IQs in the past - and it's very much the consensus that you can't really change it. It just is whatever it is.
    I most definitely don't agree that intelligence is just IQ. Can't express the same confidence about genius though.
    Last edited by OzyWho; March 21st, 2022 at 11:56 PM.

  9. ISO #9

    Re: Genius: Inherent, or environmental factors?

    Quote Originally Posted by OzyWho View Post
    Is it genius or IQ or intelligence that you wish to talk about, or are they all 3 the same to you?

    I feel like I've done a fair share of looking up information (more like look up opinions of scientists) about people's IQs in the past - and it's very much the consensus that you can't really change it. It just is whatever it is.
    I most definitely don't agree that intelligence is just IQ. Can't express the same confidence about genius though.
    Intelligence != IQ. I just said it is a standardized measurement for most cases that tend to offer a well educated form of speculative evidence for someone's cognitive abilities. However, for the term 'genius' I tend to use it loosely in this case since it refers to a widely accepted word praising someone with abnormal intellect.

 

 

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