No You Can't

[Dave]

No You Can't


Is genius a simple matter of hard work? Not a chance

*
By TERRY TEACHOUT


What do you think of when you hear the word "genius"? Most of us, I suspect, picture a fellow in a white coat who squints into a microscope, twiddles a knob, and says, "Eureka! I've found the cure for cancer!" More often than not, though, scientific and creative discoveries are the result not of bolts of mental lightning but of long stretches of painfully hard slogging. This unromantic reality is the subject of "Sudden Genius?: The Gradual Path to Creative Breakthroughs," a new book in which the British biographer Andrew Robinson examines key moments in the lives of such giants as Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci. The conclusion that he draws from their experience is that creative genius is "the work of human grit, not the product of superhuman grace." Along the way, Mr. Robinson also takes time out to consider one of the most fashionable modern-day theories of genius—and finds it wanting.

The theory is known in England as "the 10-year rule" and in the U.S., where it has been popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, the author of "Outliers," as "the 10,000-hour rule." The premise is the same: To become successful at anything, you must spend 10 years working at it for 20 hours each week. Do so, however, and success is all but inevitable. You don't have to be a genius—in fact, there's no such thing.

K. Anders Ericsson, the psychologist who is widely credited with having formulated the 10,000-hour rule, says in "The Making of an Expert," a 2007 article summarizing his research, that "experts are always made, not born." He discounts the role played by innate talent, citing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as an example: "Nobody questions that Mozart's achievements were extraordinary. . . . What's often forgotten, however, is that his development was equally exceptional for his time. His musical tutelage started before he was four years old, and his father, also a skilled composer, was a famous music teacher and had written one of the first books on violin instruction. Like other world-class performers, Mozart was not born an expert—he became one."

CONTINUED AT:

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703805004575606490403919122.html

[keith]

I've mulled this over for a day or so but still the proposition makes no sense. Hard work and a solid foundation may be a necessary condition for a "flash of genius" moment or the continued genius of a Mozart but it is not a sufficient condition.

Counter examples spring to mind almost unbidden. I am in the upper fraction of a percent of the human race in my ability to learn, understand and use mathematical concepts. No particular brag there, I can show through classes I took and grades I received that I worked at and understood mathematics. There is no doubt in my mind that by my mid-20's I knew and understood more calculus than Newton did at the same age. That is simply because there was work done by mathematicians after Newton which I studied.

However, I can conceive no way by which I could have created the mathematics he did in order to solve the physical problems before him.

Another example: my older son started playing the violin in second grade and continued through high school. He was diligent in his lessons and practices. By the time he graduated if you put a piece of music in front of him he could play it as it was meant to be played.

My younger son also started playing the violin in second grade but switched to the cello after about a year. I can't say that he had regular practice habits, he simply played as much as he needed each day whether it was 5 minutes or 2 hours.

Have you ever been cursed at by a cello? I have, one day when he was quite angry with me. I don't think what came from the cello that day could be written in a musical score. It was simply his emotions flowing through his fingers and the strings.

[Dave]

Nov 17, 2010 20:53:40 GMT -5 keith said:

Hard work and a solid foundation may be a necessary condition for a "flash of genius" moment or the continued genius of a Mozart but it is not a sufficient condition for a "flash of genius" moment or the continued genius of a Mozart.

I would agree. True genius may take some amount of development, but it must be a gift. If genius were not truly a gift, I guess we wouldn't have what were formerly called idiot savants (who I think because they are often autistic are now called Autistic Savants.)

What I find very interesting in the article is this: "It's easy to see why the Ericsson-Gladwell view of genius as a form of skill-based expertise has become so popular, for it meshes neatly with today's egalitarian notions of human potential." And it is this same attitude that supports nurture over nature, because it justifies a sometimes unwarranted offering of opportunity to everyone.

I have met quite a number of people who are smarter than me. It's rather annoying how many there are, actually. I've met only a few individuals who were really exceptional. I wouldn't say those were at a level as high as "genius," however, and I would judge that their talent took some development.