This topic runs close to home for me in a a couple of ways. First, my research is broadly in the area - not geniuses, but individual differences. Second, as a scientist, in professional capacity I've come into personal contact with a couple of giants in the field who have been called geniuses, some who most people here would recognize, others who might be less well-known.
I've grown very disillusioned with the term "genius." Part of this has become because of how painfully obvious randomness plays in all of this, from a scientific perspective - not all, but a lot of it. Another part of it, though, is from seeing how social factors shape our labeling of geniuses from others, and the consequences that has. Maybe they're the same thing, but to me they're a bit different, in that you can ask "why is this high-ability person the way they are" but you can also ask "how is that this high-ability person becomes singled out"?
It's not so much that those labeled geniuses haven't made contributions. But in the couple of cases I'm aware of, it's almost as if there's a cult of personality surrounding them, that amplifies the apparent importance of what they did, far beyond the person's actual contributions. So that their mistakes, and the sometimes serious consequences of those mistakes are conveniently forgotten; also forgotten are others in the field who contributed the same ideas or findings, but at the wrong time or in the wrong outlet. There's dynamic patterns, too, in that the person who proposes the same things, but to the wrong audience or at the wrong time is literally discouraged and punished, and the other is encouraged and rewarded. Is a framework that includes the concept of genius even accurate then?
I think one needs to take very seriously in life whether or not they believe in a just world and why.
I've grown very disillusioned with the term "genius." Part of this has become because of how painfully obvious randomness plays in all of this, from a scientific perspective - not all, but a lot of it. Another part of it, though, is from seeing how social factors shape our labeling of geniuses from others, and the consequences that has. Maybe they're the same thing, but to me they're a bit different, in that you can ask "why is this high-ability person the way they are" but you can also ask "how is that this high-ability person becomes singled out"?
It's not so much that those labeled geniuses haven't made contributions. But in the couple of cases I'm aware of, it's almost as if there's a cult of personality surrounding them, that amplifies the apparent importance of what they did, far beyond the person's actual contributions. So that their mistakes, and the sometimes serious consequences of those mistakes are conveniently forgotten; also forgotten are others in the field who contributed the same ideas or findings, but at the wrong time or in the wrong outlet. There's dynamic patterns, too, in that the person who proposes the same things, but to the wrong audience or at the wrong time is literally discouraged and punished, and the other is encouraged and rewarded. Is a framework that includes the concept of genius even accurate then?
I think one needs to take very seriously in life whether or not they believe in a just world and why.