WEBVTT - Child Prodigies: Better to Burn Out Than Fade Away 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.680 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:13.960 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.640 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're all feeling pretty 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:22.680 precocious today. You're own stuff you should know? You know? 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.400 Judging from what just happened, I think if we released 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.280 a little five minute mini episode every week of the 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.560 five minutes before we where we're recording, but before we 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.520 start the stuff that we're doing, I bet people would 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:36.000 eat that up. 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:42.760 Yeah, rate it R so, yeah, I'm sure some people 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.160 would like that the stuff you should know. Army definitely would, Yeah, 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:46.520 for sure. 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.880 Everyone else would be like, who cares what these guys 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:50.560 are talking about? 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:56.240 Off mine exactly. I tune in for facts and that's it. Yeah, 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.200 you know who else would probably eat it up? 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:03.920 Chuck M I'm thinking about names in this. I don't know. 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:09.199 Well, I was just going to start with Mozart. Oh, okay, Wolfgang, Amadas, Martza, 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:11.240 We're going to love that kind of thing. He was 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:17.200 really into hearing people talk candidly to one another. It 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:18.520 was one of his things. 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.120 Well, we're talking about child prodigies, and that's why you 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.759 bring up Mozart obviously thanks to Julia for help with this, 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.120 and also, this is the first time I think that 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.360 we're covering something that was a chapter in our book. 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:33.600 No, we've done it before, and I can't place it 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.840 really definitely. There was one other one that we definitely did. 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:38.040 Yeah, mister potato head. 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.160 No, no, I'll try to think of it and I'll 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.360 allocate about five percent of my brain to coming up 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:47.000 with it while we do the episode. 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.240 Okay, okay. At any rate, this was one of the 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.160 chapters from our book, and we were both individually relieved 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:54.800 when we texted each other that we each read reread 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.600 the chapter and it was basically the same, and I 0:01:57.680 --> 0:01:58.960 was worried. I was like, man, this is going to 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.280 be so different that one of them is going to 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.840 be sort of wrong. But long way of saying why 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.680 we talked about Mozart is because if you read anything 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.200 on the internet about child prodigies, Mozart's a name that's 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.880 gonna probably come up, one of the more famous prodigies. 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.840 And there's Julia found a pretty fun story about Mozart 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:18.480 as a teenager. 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:23.640 Right, Yeah, I actually went and listened to this miserare Yeah, miserrere. 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.880 It's a choral piece for like, I think, nine choral parts, 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.120 and it was written by Gregorio Aligari back in I 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:35.280 don't remember when he wrote it, but at least before 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.120 seventeen seventy, because that was the year that a young 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:41.640 Amideus Mozart, who was fourteen at the time, went to 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.320 Vatican City to hear this. And the reason he and 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:46.840 his father traveled to Vatican City is because this choral 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.480 piece was so beloved by the people, I guess the 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.200 Pope and all of his buddies. Yeah, that they forbade 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.800 anybody from performing it outside of Vatican City, and so 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:00.239 you know, a corollary to that was no one could 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.560 transcribe it, so that it was just to be heard 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.040 in Vatican City. They thought it was that beautiful. And 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.720 it's if you heard it, you probably recognize it. Your 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:12.919 mom probably listened to it while she was cleaning the house, 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.000 or you heard it on like, yeah, America's top forty 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:17.320 in the seventies or something. 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:20.120 I've just I've been distracted ever since you said the 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:22.000 Pope and his buddies, because now I can think of 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:26.200 this a sitcom called Pope in Company that's not bad 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.040 ampersand's CEO dot obviously. 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.680 Right, and the Pope has his like favorite reclienter that's 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:33.120 almost like an extra character. 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:36.520 Yeah, don't sit in it if you're not that's right. Yeah. 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.600 So anyway, a very revered thing within Vatican City. And 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.120 did you mention that no one could transcribe it? I 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.600 certainly did while you were I was were space distract. Yeah, 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:47.760 I was really thinking about like what the opening credits 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:49.080 to that sitcom would look like. 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:51.600 Do you have the theme song in your head? 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.560 It's clicking around up there. I'm no prodigy, so it'll 0:03:55.560 --> 0:04:01.440 take a minute. But you mentioned the transcription because Mozart, 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:05.640 as a precocious fourteen year old, couldn't fall asleep apparently 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.080 the night after the performance, so he woke up from 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.440 his slumber and transcribed it even though he wasn't supposed 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.440 to from memory as a fourteen year old. Went back 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:19.480 heard it a couple of days later and was like, oh, 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.000 I made a couple of mistakes from memory. He realized 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:23.920 this and went back and fixed them. He had hit 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.520 it in his hat because you know, he wasn't allowed 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:28.680 to have this transcribe. But just kind of a fun 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:30.640 story of Mozart's precociousness. 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.720 Yeah, and so he was at he was age fourteen, 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.440 so technically by this time he was a former prodigy. 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:38.839 Oh, is that the cutoff? 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.000 No? Ten is the cutoff. You have to have achieved 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.400 this by ten to be considered a prodigy. But the 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:49.080 reason I said generally is because if you go by 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.719 the strictest definition of prodigy, there are only a handful 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.960 of the ones we talk about in this episode, or 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:02.360 we'll talk about, actually qualify as prodigy. And technically Mozart, 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.560 you could make a case if he was a prodigy, 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:07.840 he was kind of a poor example of a prodigy 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.520 because he went on to do great things as an adult, 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.200 which is also something that's not usually characteristic of a prodigy. 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.160 Yeah, and we also need to kind of spell out 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.599 the difference between genius and prodigy because they're not necessarily 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.560 the same thing. Well they're not the same thing at all, 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:26.359 but they can overlap at times. I guess it's the 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:27.159 better way to say it. 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:29.200 But yeah, and I think Mozart would be an example 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:29.440 of that. 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:33.560 Yeah, for sure. But genius usually is a high IQ 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.320 or a high Q score of one hundred and forty, 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.240 but they may not, you know, ever, achieve anything. You 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.000 can be a genius and not achieve anything great. I mean, 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:45.240 you probably will if you're a genius, but not necessarily. 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:49.120 Prodigy doesn't necessarily have a high IQ. They often do, 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.360 but oh yeah, there it is right there generally by 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.840 the age of ten. But what a prodigy is is 0:05:54.880 --> 0:06:00.720 a kid that achieves like, like surpasses adult lever levels 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:04.400 of mastery by the time they're ten, like stuff that 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:06.440 you know, a lot of adults can't even achieve an 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.560 expertise or you know, like I can do this math 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.480 or this chess or this play this you know, instrument 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.200 better than an adult who's been doing it for decades 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:16.400 before the age of ten. 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.800 Yeah, they reached like the elite level where you can't 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.240 really get any better as far as adults go, by 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.080 the age of ten. And then one of the other 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.800 things about being a prodigy then is that by definition, 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.000 you have achieved something. Yeah, whereas like you said, but 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.240 being a genius, you are genius throughout your whole life, 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:36.359 but you may or may not achieve something. Right, to 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.159 be considered a prodigy, you have to have achieved something. 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:40.720 It's just part and parcel with it. 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.200 Yeah, and prodigies were all the rage sort of in 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:48.800 the beginning of the twentieth century, when tabloid journalism started 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:53.400 and when IQ tests started, they were all over the newspapers. 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.400 People just were, you know, amazed and want you know, 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.280 in alle of these these kids who could do these 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.000 amazing things. They were all over the place. 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.760 Yeah, the term pint size was thrown around a lot. 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:08.599 But they would they would like reporters would interview them 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:10.880 to ask them their thoughts on like current events and 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:13.440 stuff like that, and they'd be quoted extensively in the paper. 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.560 And people, I mean people like you said, were in awe, 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.600 but they were also like, oh, it's a pretty good point. 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:20.280 I hadn't thought about that, you know, so they were 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:23.840 taken seriously too. And then there's a couple of other 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.840 points that kind of make up prodigies that we've kind 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.400 of figured out over the years. One of the things 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:32.360 we should say about prodigies is that there's a surprising 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:35.320 lack of people working on this. There are some people 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:39.400 who study prodigies, and they're experts in the psychology and 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.280 neurology of prodigies, but because there's so few people working 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.560 on it, we don't have a full grasp on it. 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.360 So it's largely speculation, but it seems like we're starting 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.720 to get on track about what makes a prodigy. But 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.280 even still, there's not like a cut and dried, uniform 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.520 definition of a prodigy. Some extra things though, that usually 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:06.760 show up in particular is that they usually excel in 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:11.880 just one field of knowledge, a domain, and then in 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:16.280 that specific field of knowledge, they excel in one kind 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.760 of sub section of it. So for example, if you 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:26.000 were a music prodigy, you probably are a prodigy in say, 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:31.120 classical music. You're not like classical jazz ska, right, you're 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:35.120 a prodigy in just one yeah. Yeah, So that's another 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.000 frequent thing too. You just get really, really really good 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.880 at one specific thing. That's a characteristic of prodigies. 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.440 Yeah, and there you know, you can be a prodigy 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:47.480 in anything. A lot of times. You'll see it in 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.840 music and the maths. Chess is another good one that 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.080 you see a lot of prodigies in. But you can 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:58.640 really be a prodigy in anything. But it's, like you said, 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:03.600 a narrow range. But they usually exhibit one intelligence type 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:14.840 if you're talking about like psychological intelligence type, linguistic, mathematico, logical, spatial, visual, musical, kinesthetic, Yeah, interpersonal, interpersonal, 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:20.160 and naturalistic. And you know it's a rare that a 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.600 prodigy excels in more than one of these. Yeah. 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:28.200 And the that's multiple intelligences theory that Gardner I can't 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.280 remember Gardner's first name put out in the early nineties 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.880 and it basically overturned the idea of general intelligence, which 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.800 up to that point that's what everybody thought people had. 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:39.800 And Gardner was like, no, actually, I think it's like 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.400 carved into different areas and people can kind of take 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.679 from each of those. Then that would that makes up 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:51.760 your intelligence, not just a big general encyclopedia version of it. Yeah, 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.800 but it seems to be pretty well, pretty well accepted 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.400 these days. But like you said, most of the time 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.959 they'll excel in just one of the Again, you know, 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:06.800 you're probably not a linguistic prodigy and an intra personal 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.320 prodigy where you are really good at examining yourself. 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.760 Yeah, And how you get to be a prodigy is, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.720 you know, pretty complex, and we'll see later. It's probably 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.760 a combination of a bunch of different things. It's definitely 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.880 a combination of nature and nurture. And they've done some 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.240 studying and we'll get to some studies later on about 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:28.400 the you know, genetics and the biology of it all 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.839 and like brain function. But there is a psychologist who 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.120 is also in our book, Ellen Winner, and she's one 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:37.280 of the people if you look up prodigies, she's one 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.240 of the few experts you talked about that knows a 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.600 lot about this stuff. But she she believes in both 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.320 nature and nurture, but she very much is like, there's 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.880 got to be a genetic component. And she has a 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.319 quote if a child suddenly, at age three goes to 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:53.520 the piano and picks out a tune and does it beautifully, 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.319 this has to be because that child has a different brain. 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.320 And I totally agree, like there's something you're born with. 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.800 If you if you've ever seen the videos of Tiger 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.800 Woods when he's like two years old with a pretty 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.679 perfect golf swing, like it's that that's something that someone 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:12.520 is born with, right. 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:17.959 There's also Julia found a quote from an editor of 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.520 Vanity Fair who mentioned Elizabeth Bentson we'll talk about a 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:26.679 little bit more, but he agreed that it was probably biology, 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.040 but he hasscribed it to a perfect functioning of her 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:34.520 endocrine glands, so interesting. He figured it was glandular as 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:36.880 what was behind being a productory. But the point is 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.440 it was biology. And this is nineteen thirteen, by the way, 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:45.560 so like right now, right now, it's no, it's not 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:47.720 nineteen thirteen, it's nineteen eighty three. 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.040 Oh, thank god, I've got of my son riches and 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:52.040 my OPI thanks up. 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.520 I know, you look kind of out of place, man. 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:57.880 So the other thing about genetics is you can see 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:00.559 it in like, you know, there can be blings that 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:04.480 are prodigies, like together, I guess co prodigies. Yeah, so 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:06.800 it definitely sort of leans to the idea that it 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.160 could be genetic. There are quite a few male, very 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:14.440 famous male composers who had sisters who were also prodigies 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:18.040 and amazing composers in pianist sur violinists or what have you, 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.640 but they didn't get the you know, the attention that 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:25.320 their you know, brother sibling counterparts got because they were girls. 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.560 Maria Mozart was one. Felix Mendelssohn had a sister named 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.559 Fanny who was a music prodigy m H. And then 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.160 others that you often see mentioned obviously are Venus and 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.880 Serena Williams, and then the Polgar sisters who were Judet, 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:40.800 Susan and Sophia. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:44.960 They were chess prodigies, right, And you were thinking about 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.080 Pope and Company as a sitcom. Well, I was studying this. 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:52.599 I noticed Felix and Fanny would make a good children's 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.760 book series, right. Oh yeah, Like I just imagine them 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.520 as little kids, and in between piano lessons they go 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.480 off and solve mysteries together. Felix and Fanny series. And 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.480 so anytime I think of children's books, I think of 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.600 our literary agent, our former agent, Stephen Barr. 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:10.959 Oh. Yeah, So I looked him up to. 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.160 Say hi, and I was looking I was looking him 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.800 up on the internet. He has his own children's book 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:19.040 that he wrote and published. It's called The Upside Down Hat. 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:21.480 And so I emailed him and congratulated him. I was 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:23.840 very excited to see that. Yeah, he's got some more 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:24.560 coming too. 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.360 Stephen was the best, and I knew he had a 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:30.480 kid since we had worked with him. So that's that's 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:31.400 super cool. I love that. 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:33.680 Yeah, he's got two now. He says, two. 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:34.840 Kids are two children's books. 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.280 Two kids three children's books, including the two that are 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:40.040 coming out soon. 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.840 Well, I guess he needs to get a third kid, Yeah. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.000 Write one for Yeah. It's called the Upside Down Hat 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:47.400 and it's pretty cute looking. 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:52.880 Oh that's wonderful. So I guess let's take a break. Well, 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:54.320 I guess the last thing we should say is, you know, 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.680 I mentioned sort of the perfect storm of things to 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.839 make a prodigy, and that definitely seems to be the consensus. 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.920 Like there's some genetics at play, but the cognitive, developmental 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:07.640 and environmental factors are all kind of coming together at 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.000 the same time to lead to that what Ellen Winter 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.600 calls a rage to master, which we're going to talk 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.280 about out of the break, that seems to be the recipe, right. 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.240 It makes me wonder, like how many things have we 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.920 just not understood that we could have already. Have we 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.840 not constantly been trying to boil everything down to one 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.400 thing like this is one cause for all this other stuff, 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.240 like is it nature? Is it nurture? No, it's both, 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.520 And I'm glad to see that prodigy researchers have accepted 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:36.520 that fact. 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:37.360 Greed. 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:39.640 Okay, well, let's take that break then. 0:14:39.760 --> 0:15:05.080 All right, we'll be right back. All right. So I 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.560 mentioned the phrase rage to master, and that was something 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.600 I believe Ellen winner came up with and that's kind 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.120 of exactly what it sounds like, which is something that 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.120 they found with prodigies. At these these little kids come 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.240 out of the womb, they get to be like two 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.320 maybe three years old, and all of a sudden, out 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:28.120 of nowhere, they exhibit a gift. And that's the only 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.280 thing they want to do. And this is not some 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:31.840 kid who's like, hey, they turned out to be pretty 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:33.240 good at this, and they played a lot of piano, 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.800 like we're talking about prodigies. Like, they become obsessed with 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:38.640 they have a rage to master this thing. 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:43.160 Yeah, And it's just basically like they ignore everything else, 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:45.920 even stuff that little kids would want to do, like 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.480 fun playing stuff, yeah, going to. 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:49.720 The movies or whatever, making friends. 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.200 All they want to do. Yeah, All they want to 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.280 do is that one thing over and over and over 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.400 again and master it. And so there's a researcher named 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:01.880 Larry Vanderbert who who believes that it has to do 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:06.440 with the connection between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex. 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.720 And the reason he focus isn't on the cerebellum is 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:14.040 because apparently that is where we learn things, we become 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:17.800 experts in things, we learn to practice things, and the 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.440 cerebellum has a bunch of connections to the cerebral cortex. 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.360 Cerebral cortex is in charge of our higher functioning. So 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.800 with those two combined together, working together, us doing things 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.840 repetitively is how we learn to get better and better 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:37.720 at it. Right, His whole thing is that with a prodigy, 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:43.720 what we're seeing is the evolution of humanity at its 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.320 brightest point, Like these are examples of what could conceivably 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.120 be every single person if that perfect storm you're talking 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:56.720 about came together, and it's just like the most finely 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:01.200 tuned functioning example of what our have evolved to be 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:03.640 able to do. That's what he says prodigies are. 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.520 Yeah, it's pretty interesting. He theorizes that the cerebellum creates 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:09.240 some kind of feedback loop is what he calls it, 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.639 where you have, you know, some kind of selective affinity 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.439 or a talent or an interest in something and getting 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.560 better at that. I mean, it's got to be like 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.000 a dopamine reward or something like that. It hits those 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:25.000 reward centers and there's some sort of psychological gold star 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:27.960 that you give yourself and that feels so good that 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.639 this that the kid with a prodigious brain is constantly 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.119 seeking that reward and it creates what he calls a 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.399 maximal grip, Like this grip has just got hold of 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.640 this kid because they're always seeking that that mental gold 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:42.520 star of getting better and better and better at that 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:42.960 one thing. 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.959 Yeah right, so it's almost like they're there. They have 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.919 no chill, right, they it's like their brains get stuck 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:55.399 in a natural progression or natural part of developing as 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.679 a human being from childhood to adulthood, and they just 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:01.400 go off like a rock on that one tangent. 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:03.679 Yeah that was not me. 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:05.800 No, it wasn't me either. 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.040 I can do a lot of things pretty good. 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.120 Yeah, a dileton. 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.520 Yeah, I mean that's always been my thing. Like with sports, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.560 I was never like built the way that you needed 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.520 to be built to play like varsity sports. But I 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:23.440 could throw a football and catch a football and pun 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:25.199 of football, and I could play little tennis. I can 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.600 play a little golf. I can you know, I played 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.040 you know, a little baseball, little softball, little soccer and 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.320 kick a soccer ball. I can throw frisbee, like you know, 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:37.199 I'm well rounded athletically, But I was never gonna be 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:41.320 on a like a a high school team, right, I gotcha. 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:44.000 I was okay in church league. 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:45.080 Everybody went. 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:47.439 But I wouldn't embarrass myself in anything. You know. 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:52.480 I excelled as a child in hiding my knockoff Flintstone 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:55.359 vitamins in my Lincoln log houses because they were so 0:18:55.560 --> 0:19:00.439 disgusting I couldn't eat them. I can actually almost make 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:02.880 myself nauseated thinking about him. Now. 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.000 Really, Betty was not a vitamin. 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.600 I don't remember that. Was she not? She was missing? 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.679 I don't think so, because I there was a local 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.080 band in Atlanta called Betty's Not a Vitamin? Okay, because 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:18.280 of that factod. 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:23.280 Well, had she been in the flintstone knockoff vitamins, I had, 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.160 she would have looked all misshaped and her name would 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:30.680 have been like Teddy or something like that with two 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:31.680 with three t's. 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:32.680 I love it. 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:37.480 There's one other thing about Larry Vanderwert's hypothesis about the cerebellum, 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:40.280 because he said, you know, this is a weird like 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:46.480 example of human natural human development. He pointed out that 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.680 part of what being a prodigy is excelling at something cultural, right, 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:55.280 like everything that prodigy kids do. They're not inventing anything, 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:57.600 they're just getting good at something that already exists. 0:19:57.840 --> 0:19:58.040 Yeah. 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:02.600 Yeah, So part of his theory hypothesis is that you 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:06.400 couldn't have a prodigy by definition before the event of culture. 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.280 So he theorizes that probably about ten thousand years ago 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.600 is when the first prodigies started to pop up. 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.520 Oh interesting, I thought it took son her daughter. 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.200 Yeah maybe great great great great great great great great 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:25.040 grandson or daughter. Okay, yeah, good point, that's my posit I. 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.040 Never remember when tuk took lived, so you know, me, 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:28.160 I get a little confused. 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:29.480 He's all over the place. 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:35.920 So another really interesting biological piece to this is memory 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:40.600 and working memory is something that they found. I think 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.520 there was a paper in twenty twelve by researchers Irbach 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:49.439 and Rutsots. They gathered cognitive data from eight child prodigies 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.200 and they looked at a couple of things. They looked 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.200 at their developmental history. They looked at scores on the 0:20:55.240 --> 0:21:00.760 Stanford Benet fifth Edition Intelligence test and the autismctrum quotient, 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:05.520 and they found, you know, there were different range of IQs, 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.439 but even the ones had high IQs weren't on the 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.080 extreme end. Of like you know, super genius or anything. 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:15.040 But what they did find was that every single one 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:18.159 of them were then the ninety ninth percentile for working memory. 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:21.200 I saw some also scored in the ninety nine point 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:23.800 ninth percentile, so. 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:25.399 Like there's something there. 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.000 I was reading I think a Scientific American article on this, 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:31.440 and they said that if you just randomly selected eight 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.840 people and gave them this test, like there's a zero 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:38.600 chance that they would all score in the ninety ninth percentile. 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.000 So yeah, it is quite a finding. But I think 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:44.400 also like a really important finding too, is that their 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.360