Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're all feeling pretty
Speaker 2: precocious today. You're own stuff you should know? You know?
Speaker 1: Judging from what just happened, I think if we released
Speaker 1: a little five minute mini episode every week of the
Speaker 1: five minutes before we where we're recording, but before we
Speaker 1: start the stuff that we're doing, I bet people would
Speaker 1: eat that up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, rate it R so, yeah, I'm sure some people
Speaker 2: would like that the stuff you should know. Army definitely would, Yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: Everyone else would be like, who cares what these guys
Speaker 1: are talking about?
Speaker 2: Off mine exactly. I tune in for facts and that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know who else would probably eat it up?
Speaker 1: Chuck M I'm thinking about names in this. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, I was just going to start with Mozart. Oh, okay, Wolfgang, Amadas, Martza,
Speaker 2: We're going to love that kind of thing. He was
Speaker 2: really into hearing people talk candidly to one another. It
Speaker 2: was one of his things.
Speaker 1: Well, we're talking about child prodigies, and that's why you
Speaker 1: bring up Mozart obviously thanks to Julia for help with this,
Speaker 1: and also, this is the first time I think that
Speaker 1: we're covering something that was a chapter in our book.
Speaker 2: No, we've done it before, and I can't place it
Speaker 2: really definitely. There was one other one that we definitely did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mister potato head.
Speaker 2: No, no, I'll try to think of it and I'll
Speaker 2: allocate about five percent of my brain to coming up
Speaker 2: with it while we do the episode.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. At any rate, this was one of the
Speaker 1: chapters from our book, and we were both individually relieved
Speaker 1: when we texted each other that we each read reread
Speaker 1: the chapter and it was basically the same, and I
Speaker 1: was worried. I was like, man, this is going to
Speaker 1: be so different that one of them is going to
Speaker 1: be sort of wrong. But long way of saying why
Speaker 1: we talked about Mozart is because if you read anything
Speaker 1: on the internet about child prodigies, Mozart's a name that's
Speaker 1: gonna probably come up, one of the more famous prodigies.
Speaker 1: And there's Julia found a pretty fun story about Mozart
Speaker 1: as a teenager.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I actually went and listened to this miserare Yeah, miserrere.
Speaker 2: It's a choral piece for like, I think, nine choral parts,
Speaker 2: and it was written by Gregorio Aligari back in I
Speaker 2: don't remember when he wrote it, but at least before
Speaker 2: seventeen seventy, because that was the year that a young
Speaker 2: Amideus Mozart, who was fourteen at the time, went to
Speaker 2: Vatican City to hear this. And the reason he and
Speaker 2: his father traveled to Vatican City is because this choral
Speaker 2: piece was so beloved by the people, I guess the
Speaker 2: Pope and all of his buddies. Yeah, that they forbade
Speaker 2: anybody from performing it outside of Vatican City, and so
Speaker 2: you know, a corollary to that was no one could
Speaker 2: transcribe it, so that it was just to be heard
Speaker 2: in Vatican City. They thought it was that beautiful. And
Speaker 2: it's if you heard it, you probably recognize it. Your
Speaker 2: mom probably listened to it while she was cleaning the house,
Speaker 2: or you heard it on like, yeah, America's top forty
Speaker 2: in the seventies or something.
Speaker 1: I've just I've been distracted ever since you said the
Speaker 1: Pope and his buddies, because now I can think of
Speaker 1: this a sitcom called Pope in Company that's not bad
Speaker 1: ampersand's CEO dot obviously.
Speaker 2: Right, and the Pope has his like favorite reclienter that's
Speaker 2: almost like an extra character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't sit in it if you're not that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, a very revered thing within Vatican City. And
Speaker 1: did you mention that no one could transcribe it? I
Speaker 1: certainly did while you were I was were space distract. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was really thinking about like what the opening credits
Speaker 1: to that sitcom would look like.
Speaker 2: Do you have the theme song in your head?
Speaker 1: It's clicking around up there. I'm no prodigy, so it'll
Speaker 1: take a minute. But you mentioned the transcription because Mozart,
Speaker 1: as a precocious fourteen year old, couldn't fall asleep apparently
Speaker 1: the night after the performance, so he woke up from
Speaker 1: his slumber and transcribed it even though he wasn't supposed
Speaker 1: to from memory as a fourteen year old. Went back
Speaker 1: heard it a couple of days later and was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I made a couple of mistakes from memory. He realized
Speaker 1: this and went back and fixed them. He had hit
Speaker 1: it in his hat because you know, he wasn't allowed
Speaker 1: to have this transcribe. But just kind of a fun
Speaker 1: story of Mozart's precociousness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so he was at he was age fourteen,
Speaker 2: so technically by this time he was a former prodigy.
Speaker 1: Oh, is that the cutoff?
Speaker 2: No? Ten is the cutoff. You have to have achieved
Speaker 2: this by ten to be considered a prodigy. But the
Speaker 2: reason I said generally is because if you go by
Speaker 2: the strictest definition of prodigy, there are only a handful
Speaker 2: of the ones we talk about in this episode, or
Speaker 2: we'll talk about, actually qualify as prodigy. And technically Mozart,
Speaker 2: you could make a case if he was a prodigy,
Speaker 2: he was kind of a poor example of a prodigy
Speaker 2: because he went on to do great things as an adult,
Speaker 2: which is also something that's not usually characteristic of a prodigy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we also need to kind of spell out
Speaker 1: the difference between genius and prodigy because they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: the same thing. Well they're not the same thing at all,
Speaker 1: but they can overlap at times. I guess it's the
Speaker 1: better way to say it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and I think Mozart would be an example
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. But genius usually is a high IQ
Speaker 1: or a high Q score of one hundred and forty,
Speaker 1: but they may not, you know, ever, achieve anything. You
Speaker 1: can be a genius and not achieve anything great. I mean,
Speaker 1: you probably will if you're a genius, but not necessarily.
Speaker 1: Prodigy doesn't necessarily have a high IQ. They often do,
Speaker 1: but oh yeah, there it is right there generally by
Speaker 1: the age of ten. But what a prodigy is is
Speaker 1: a kid that achieves like, like surpasses adult lever levels
Speaker 1: of mastery by the time they're ten, like stuff that
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of adults can't even achieve an
Speaker 1: expertise or you know, like I can do this math
Speaker 1: or this chess or this play this you know, instrument
Speaker 1: better than an adult who's been doing it for decades
Speaker 1: before the age of ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they reached like the elite level where you can't
Speaker 2: really get any better as far as adults go, by
Speaker 2: the age of ten. And then one of the other
Speaker 2: things about being a prodigy then is that by definition,
Speaker 2: you have achieved something. Yeah, whereas like you said, but
Speaker 2: being a genius, you are genius throughout your whole life,
Speaker 2: but you may or may not achieve something. Right, to
Speaker 2: be considered a prodigy, you have to have achieved something.
Speaker 2: It's just part and parcel with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and prodigies were all the rage sort of in
Speaker 1: the beginning of the twentieth century, when tabloid journalism started
Speaker 1: and when IQ tests started, they were all over the newspapers.
Speaker 1: People just were, you know, amazed and want you know,
Speaker 1: in alle of these these kids who could do these
Speaker 1: amazing things. They were all over the place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the term pint size was thrown around a lot.
Speaker 2: But they would they would like reporters would interview them
Speaker 2: to ask them their thoughts on like current events and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, and they'd be quoted extensively in the paper.
Speaker 2: And people, I mean people like you said, were in awe,
Speaker 2: but they were also like, oh, it's a pretty good point.
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought about that, you know, so they were
Speaker 2: taken seriously too. And then there's a couple of other
Speaker 2: points that kind of make up prodigies that we've kind
Speaker 2: of figured out over the years. One of the things
Speaker 2: we should say about prodigies is that there's a surprising
Speaker 2: lack of people working on this. There are some people
Speaker 2: who study prodigies, and they're experts in the psychology and
Speaker 2: neurology of prodigies, but because there's so few people working
Speaker 2: on it, we don't have a full grasp on it.
Speaker 2: So it's largely speculation, but it seems like we're starting
Speaker 2: to get on track about what makes a prodigy. But
Speaker 2: even still, there's not like a cut and dried, uniform
Speaker 2: definition of a prodigy. Some extra things though, that usually
Speaker 2: show up in particular is that they usually excel in
Speaker 2: just one field of knowledge, a domain, and then in
Speaker 2: that specific field of knowledge, they excel in one kind
Speaker 2: of sub section of it. So for example, if you
Speaker 2: were a music prodigy, you probably are a prodigy in say,
Speaker 2: classical music. You're not like classical jazz ska, right, you're
Speaker 2: a prodigy in just one yeah. Yeah, So that's another
Speaker 2: frequent thing too. You just get really, really really good
Speaker 2: at one specific thing. That's a characteristic of prodigies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there you know, you can be a prodigy
Speaker 1: in anything. A lot of times. You'll see it in
Speaker 1: music and the maths. Chess is another good one that
Speaker 1: you see a lot of prodigies in. But you can
Speaker 1: really be a prodigy in anything. But it's, like you said,
Speaker 1: a narrow range. But they usually exhibit one intelligence type
Speaker 1: if you're talking about like psychological intelligence type, linguistic, mathematico, logical, spatial, visual, musical, kinesthetic, Yeah, interpersonal, interpersonal,
Speaker 1: and naturalistic. And you know it's a rare that a
Speaker 1: prodigy excels in more than one of these. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the that's multiple intelligences theory that Gardner I can't
Speaker 2: remember Gardner's first name put out in the early nineties
Speaker 2: and it basically overturned the idea of general intelligence, which
Speaker 2: up to that point that's what everybody thought people had.
Speaker 2: And Gardner was like, no, actually, I think it's like
Speaker 2: carved into different areas and people can kind of take
Speaker 2: from each of those. Then that would that makes up
Speaker 2: your intelligence, not just a big general encyclopedia version of it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it seems to be pretty well, pretty well accepted
Speaker 2: these days. But like you said, most of the time
Speaker 2: they'll excel in just one of the Again, you know,
Speaker 2: you're probably not a linguistic prodigy and an intra personal
Speaker 2: prodigy where you are really good at examining yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And how you get to be a prodigy is,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty complex, and we'll see later. It's probably
Speaker 1: a combination of a bunch of different things. It's definitely
Speaker 1: a combination of nature and nurture. And they've done some
Speaker 1: studying and we'll get to some studies later on about
Speaker 1: the you know, genetics and the biology of it all
Speaker 1: and like brain function. But there is a psychologist who
Speaker 1: is also in our book, Ellen Winner, and she's one
Speaker 1: of the people if you look up prodigies, she's one
Speaker 1: of the few experts you talked about that knows a
Speaker 1: lot about this stuff. But she she believes in both
Speaker 1: nature and nurture, but she very much is like, there's
Speaker 1: got to be a genetic component. And she has a
Speaker 1: quote if a child suddenly, at age three goes to
Speaker 1: the piano and picks out a tune and does it beautifully,
Speaker 1: this has to be because that child has a different brain.
Speaker 1: And I totally agree, like there's something you're born with.
Speaker 1: If you if you've ever seen the videos of Tiger
Speaker 1: Woods when he's like two years old with a pretty
Speaker 1: perfect golf swing, like it's that that's something that someone
Speaker 1: is born with, right.
Speaker 2: There's also Julia found a quote from an editor of
Speaker 2: Vanity Fair who mentioned Elizabeth Bentson we'll talk about a
Speaker 2: little bit more, but he agreed that it was probably biology,
Speaker 2: but he hasscribed it to a perfect functioning of her
Speaker 2: endocrine glands, so interesting. He figured it was glandular as
Speaker 2: what was behind being a productory. But the point is
Speaker 2: it was biology. And this is nineteen thirteen, by the way,
Speaker 2: so like right now, right now, it's no, it's not
Speaker 2: nineteen thirteen, it's nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank god, I've got of my son riches and
Speaker 1: my OPI thanks up.
Speaker 2: I know, you look kind of out of place, man.
Speaker 1: So the other thing about genetics is you can see
Speaker 1: it in like, you know, there can be blings that
Speaker 1: are prodigies, like together, I guess co prodigies. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it definitely sort of leans to the idea that it
Speaker 1: could be genetic. There are quite a few male, very
Speaker 1: famous male composers who had sisters who were also prodigies
Speaker 1: and amazing composers in pianist sur violinists or what have you,
Speaker 1: but they didn't get the you know, the attention that
Speaker 1: their you know, brother sibling counterparts got because they were girls.
Speaker 1: Maria Mozart was one. Felix Mendelssohn had a sister named
Speaker 1: Fanny who was a music prodigy m H. And then
Speaker 1: others that you often see mentioned obviously are Venus and
Speaker 1: Serena Williams, and then the Polgar sisters who were Judet,
Speaker 1: Susan and Sophia.
Speaker 2: They were chess prodigies, right, And you were thinking about
Speaker 2: Pope and Company as a sitcom. Well, I was studying this.
Speaker 2: I noticed Felix and Fanny would make a good children's
Speaker 2: book series, right. Oh yeah, Like I just imagine them
Speaker 2: as little kids, and in between piano lessons they go
Speaker 2: off and solve mysteries together. Felix and Fanny series. And
Speaker 2: so anytime I think of children's books, I think of
Speaker 2: our literary agent, our former agent, Stephen Barr.
Speaker 1: Oh. Yeah, So I looked him up to.
Speaker 2: Say hi, and I was looking I was looking him
Speaker 2: up on the internet. He has his own children's book
Speaker 2: that he wrote and published. It's called The Upside Down Hat.
Speaker 2: And so I emailed him and congratulated him. I was
Speaker 2: very excited to see that. Yeah, he's got some more
Speaker 2: coming too.
Speaker 1: Stephen was the best, and I knew he had a
Speaker 1: kid since we had worked with him. So that's that's
Speaker 1: super cool. I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got two now. He says, two.
Speaker 1: Kids are two children's books.
Speaker 2: Two kids three children's books, including the two that are
Speaker 2: coming out soon.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess he needs to get a third kid, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Write one for Yeah. It's called the Upside Down Hat
Speaker 2: and it's pretty cute looking.
Speaker 1: Oh that's wonderful. So I guess let's take a break. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess the last thing we should say is, you know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned sort of the perfect storm of things to
Speaker 1: make a prodigy, and that definitely seems to be the consensus.
Speaker 1: Like there's some genetics at play, but the cognitive, developmental
Speaker 1: and environmental factors are all kind of coming together at
Speaker 1: the same time to lead to that what Ellen Winter
Speaker 1: calls a rage to master, which we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about out of the break, that seems to be the recipe, right.
Speaker 2: It makes me wonder, like how many things have we
Speaker 2: just not understood that we could have already. Have we
Speaker 2: not constantly been trying to boil everything down to one
Speaker 2: thing like this is one cause for all this other stuff,
Speaker 2: like is it nature? Is it nurture? No, it's both,
Speaker 2: And I'm glad to see that prodigy researchers have accepted
Speaker 2: that fact.
Speaker 1: Greed.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's take that break then.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back. All right. So I
Speaker 1: mentioned the phrase rage to master, and that was something
Speaker 1: I believe Ellen winner came up with and that's kind
Speaker 1: of exactly what it sounds like, which is something that
Speaker 1: they found with prodigies. At these these little kids come
Speaker 1: out of the womb, they get to be like two
Speaker 1: maybe three years old, and all of a sudden, out
Speaker 1: of nowhere, they exhibit a gift. And that's the only
Speaker 1: thing they want to do. And this is not some
Speaker 1: kid who's like, hey, they turned out to be pretty
Speaker 1: good at this, and they played a lot of piano,
Speaker 1: like we're talking about prodigies. Like, they become obsessed with
Speaker 1: they have a rage to master this thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's just basically like they ignore everything else,
Speaker 2: even stuff that little kids would want to do, like
Speaker 2: fun playing stuff, yeah, going to.
Speaker 1: The movies or whatever, making friends.
Speaker 2: All they want to do. Yeah, All they want to
Speaker 2: do is that one thing over and over and over
Speaker 2: again and master it. And so there's a researcher named
Speaker 2: Larry Vanderbert who who believes that it has to do
Speaker 2: with the connection between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex.
Speaker 2: And the reason he focus isn't on the cerebellum is
Speaker 2: because apparently that is where we learn things, we become
Speaker 2: experts in things, we learn to practice things, and the
Speaker 2: cerebellum has a bunch of connections to the cerebral cortex.
Speaker 2: Cerebral cortex is in charge of our higher functioning. So
Speaker 2: with those two combined together, working together, us doing things
Speaker 2: repetitively is how we learn to get better and better
Speaker 2: at it. Right, His whole thing is that with a prodigy,
Speaker 2: what we're seeing is the evolution of humanity at its
Speaker 2: brightest point, Like these are examples of what could conceivably
Speaker 2: be every single person if that perfect storm you're talking
Speaker 2: about came together, and it's just like the most finely
Speaker 2: tuned functioning example of what our have evolved to be
Speaker 2: able to do. That's what he says prodigies are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty interesting. He theorizes that the cerebellum creates
Speaker 1: some kind of feedback loop is what he calls it,
Speaker 1: where you have, you know, some kind of selective affinity
Speaker 1: or a talent or an interest in something and getting
Speaker 1: better at that. I mean, it's got to be like
Speaker 1: a dopamine reward or something like that. It hits those
Speaker 1: reward centers and there's some sort of psychological gold star
Speaker 1: that you give yourself and that feels so good that
Speaker 1: this that the kid with a prodigious brain is constantly
Speaker 1: seeking that reward and it creates what he calls a
Speaker 1: maximal grip, Like this grip has just got hold of
Speaker 1: this kid because they're always seeking that that mental gold
Speaker 1: star of getting better and better and better at that
Speaker 1: one thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, so it's almost like they're there. They have
Speaker 2: no chill, right, they it's like their brains get stuck
Speaker 2: in a natural progression or natural part of developing as
Speaker 2: a human being from childhood to adulthood, and they just
Speaker 2: go off like a rock on that one tangent.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was not me.
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't me either.
Speaker 1: I can do a lot of things pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a dileton.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's always been my thing. Like with sports,
Speaker 1: I was never like built the way that you needed
Speaker 1: to be built to play like varsity sports. But I
Speaker 1: could throw a football and catch a football and pun
Speaker 1: of football, and I could play little tennis. I can
Speaker 1: play a little golf. I can you know, I played
Speaker 1: you know, a little baseball, little softball, little soccer and
Speaker 1: kick a soccer ball. I can throw frisbee, like you know,
Speaker 1: I'm well rounded athletically, But I was never gonna be
Speaker 1: on a like a a high school team, right, I gotcha.
Speaker 1: I was okay in church league.
Speaker 2: Everybody went.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't embarrass myself in anything. You know.
Speaker 2: I excelled as a child in hiding my knockoff Flintstone
Speaker 2: vitamins in my Lincoln log houses because they were so
Speaker 2: disgusting I couldn't eat them. I can actually almost make
Speaker 2: myself nauseated thinking about him. Now.
Speaker 1: Really, Betty was not a vitamin.
Speaker 2: I don't remember that. Was she not? She was missing?
Speaker 1: I don't think so, because I there was a local
Speaker 1: band in Atlanta called Betty's Not a Vitamin? Okay, because
Speaker 1: of that factod.
Speaker 2: Well, had she been in the flintstone knockoff vitamins, I had,
Speaker 2: she would have looked all misshaped and her name would
Speaker 2: have been like Teddy or something like that with two
Speaker 2: with three t's.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: There's one other thing about Larry Vanderwert's hypothesis about the cerebellum,
Speaker 2: because he said, you know, this is a weird like
Speaker 2: example of human natural human development. He pointed out that
Speaker 2: part of what being a prodigy is excelling at something cultural, right,
Speaker 2: like everything that prodigy kids do. They're not inventing anything,
Speaker 2: they're just getting good at something that already exists.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So part of his theory hypothesis is that you
Speaker 2: couldn't have a prodigy by definition before the event of culture.
Speaker 2: So he theorizes that probably about ten thousand years ago
Speaker 2: is when the first prodigies started to pop up.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, I thought it took son her daughter.
Speaker 2: Yeah maybe great great great great great great great great
Speaker 2: grandson or daughter. Okay, yeah, good point, that's my posit I.
Speaker 1: Never remember when tuk took lived, so you know, me,
Speaker 1: I get a little confused.
Speaker 2: He's all over the place.
Speaker 1: So another really interesting biological piece to this is memory
Speaker 1: and working memory is something that they found. I think
Speaker 1: there was a paper in twenty twelve by researchers Irbach
Speaker 1: and Rutsots. They gathered cognitive data from eight child prodigies
Speaker 1: and they looked at a couple of things. They looked
Speaker 1: at their developmental history. They looked at scores on the
Speaker 1: Stanford Benet fifth Edition Intelligence test and the autismctrum quotient,
Speaker 1: and they found, you know, there were different range of IQs,
Speaker 1: but even the ones had high IQs weren't on the
Speaker 1: extreme end. Of like you know, super genius or anything.
Speaker 1: But what they did find was that every single one
Speaker 1: of them were then the ninety ninth percentile for working memory.
Speaker 2: I saw some also scored in the ninety nine point
Speaker 2: ninth percentile, so.
Speaker 1: Like there's something there.
Speaker 2: I was reading I think a Scientific American article on this,
Speaker 2: and they said that if you just randomly selected eight
Speaker 2: people and gave them this test, like there's a zero
Speaker 2: chance that they would all score in the ninety ninth percentile.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it is quite a finding. But I think
Speaker 2: also like a really important finding too, is that their
Speaker 2: IQs aren't particularly eye popping. Yeah, but you know some
Speaker 2: of them were I think past one forty, and that's
Speaker 2: the one fortis the minimum for genius. One thirty, I
Speaker 2: think is where being gifted starts. At least one of
Speaker 2: them had an IQ of a hund that is exactly
Speaker 2: average IQ. So IQ or intelligence, or at least the
Speaker 2: way that we understand measuring intelligence with IQ. See, it
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to have that much to do with being
Speaker 2: a prodigy. Has some because again one hundred I think
Speaker 2: was the minimum, and they went up to genius level
Speaker 2: and passed, But it doesn't have nearly as much as
Speaker 2: you would think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. But working memory, like that's really interesting
Speaker 1: to me because that's the last like, that's your active
Speaker 1: working memory, the last few things that have happened, calling
Speaker 1: those up really easily. So if you're talking you know
Speaker 1: about obviously with you know, musicianship and chess and math
Speaker 1: and things like that, like being able to really quickly
Speaker 1: recall the last few notes you played, or the last
Speaker 1: few parts of this logarithm, that's that's gonna have a
Speaker 1: big impact obviously.
Speaker 2: For sure. There's a good example that I found of that,
Speaker 2: John von Newman, who would go on to become a
Speaker 2: great mathematician, physicist, pioneering commuter computer science. He as a
Speaker 2: child prodigy, would entertain his parents' friends at their parties
Speaker 2: by they give him a phone book and he would
Speaker 2: read over one of the pages and then hand the
Speaker 2: phone book back, and they'd ask him questions like what's
Speaker 2: you know. They'd pick a name and say what's their
Speaker 2: phone number and address, and he'd tell them and then
Speaker 2: they'd say, well, recite this whole page, and he would
Speaker 2: recite it verbatim just after looking at it for a
Speaker 2: little while, which is an amazing example of working memory.
Speaker 2: But that's also I mean, he was a phone book prodigy,
Speaker 2: pure and simple.
Speaker 1: As you know. I recently had lunch with a friend
Speaker 1: of the show and pal Kevin Pollack, the actor, yes
Speaker 1: and comedian, and sadly you were out of town so
Speaker 1: you couldn't go. But Pollack's first his first act was
Speaker 1: not doing it because he's a great impressionist, as we
Speaker 1: all know, not doing impressions of comedy albums. Like a
Speaker 1: lot of kids, the first thing they do is like
Speaker 1: just repeat the bits from comedy record or specials, right.
Speaker 1: He would he would mouth them in perfect synchronicity.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: So he would do air air comedy and he would
Speaker 1: do like the throat clears and everything, and he did it,
Speaker 1: you know as like I don't know how young he was.
Speaker 1: He said he was like six or seven to where
Speaker 1: like one of his mom's neighbors or one of his
Speaker 1: neighbors or one of his mom's friends was like, you're
Speaker 1: doing this at the you know, the shine bombs, bar
Speaker 1: mitsv it next week, like I'm booking you. And he
Speaker 1: was like for the first six years or so of
Speaker 1: his life, like he did at school, like my act
Speaker 1: was completely just mouthing these comedy bits.
Speaker 2: That's pretty awesome. Yeah, it's fun. It's impressive. He was
Speaker 2: a Richard Pryor comedy album prodigy.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean he made a good point which was
Speaker 1: he was like, the material killed because the material was great,
Speaker 1: because it was like the best comics. And he went
Speaker 1: and then I got it down so good that part killed,
Speaker 1: and he was like I couldn't fail.
Speaker 2: Basically, that's pretty great man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fun story.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So one other thing about working memory, Chuck,
Speaker 2: before we move on. One of the things that that
Speaker 2: helps with is learning things like chess or math, or
Speaker 2: things that have steps to them. You're keeping the information
Speaker 2: you need to complete this step so you can move
Speaker 2: on to the next and you're probably also thinking about
Speaker 2: what the next step is too simultaneously. Working memory really
Speaker 2: comes in handy for that. So it makes sense that
Speaker 2: they have just amazing working memory levels.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the connection to autism is really interesting too
Speaker 1: because in that paper, you know, and from twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that they looked at cognitive data for several things,
Speaker 1: one of which was the autism spectrum quotient, and they
Speaker 1: found it. You know, they found a pretty undeniable connection.
Speaker 1: They found that subjects who were prodigies had definitely had
Speaker 1: more autistic relatives than the general population does, and very
Speaker 1: high scores and the attention to detail part of the
Speaker 1: autism spectrum quotient. So you know, attention to detail is
Speaker 1: something obviously if you have a gift for you might
Speaker 1: wind up a prodigy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they didn't score high or beyond the general
Speaker 2: population and the other parts of the autism spectrum quotient. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they don't have autism. I think that's because there's
Speaker 2: a separate group where if you have like severe autism
Speaker 2: or some other cognitive difference, you are a savant. You're
Speaker 2: not a prodigy. You're a savant, even though the stuff
Speaker 2: you're doing is prodigious. It's yeah, you're you're considered separate
Speaker 2: for some reason. I don't know why, but that seems
Speaker 2: to still be the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. Those same two researchers, Ruth Zots and
Speaker 1: was it Ulbach Ulrock Urbabach, Urbach Jerry Orbach Jerry Orboch,
Speaker 1: they did it. They authored a second paper, and this
Speaker 1: is from twenty fourteen, where they studied eighteen prodigies this
Speaker 1: time and they were masters. These eighteen and either math, music,
Speaker 1: or art, and some of the patterns they found were
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. They all had that same great working memory,
Speaker 1: so that was sort of proved out a little further even,
Speaker 1: but the music and math prodigy scored a lot higher
Speaker 1: on working memory than even the art prodigies, and this
Speaker 1: was super interesting to me. The math prodigies displayed the
Speaker 1: highest levels of overall intelligence and extraordinary visual spatial skills,
Speaker 1: where as the art prodigies had the lowest visual spatial scores. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is weird, Yeah, counterintuitive.
Speaker 2: Should we take a break or keep going? Yeah, let's
Speaker 2: take a break. Okay, We're going to take a break.
Speaker 2: Everybody here, we go. Okay, Chuck. So we've talked a
Speaker 2: couple of times about how prodigy experts agree that it
Speaker 2: does seem to be a combination of nature and nurture.
Speaker 2: I think perfect storm is a term that people use
Speaker 2: a lot. So the parents of a prodigy definitely do
Speaker 2: have a role in their development as a prodigy, and
Speaker 2: there have been parents of prodigies who have really kind
Speaker 2: of claimed that they're essentially responsible for their child's prodigy.
Speaker 2: There was a I think William James Sittis's dad, Remember
Speaker 2: we did a whole episode on that poor guy. Oh yeah, deal,
Speaker 2: he was one of the most amazing child prodigies of
Speaker 2: all time, just beyond gifted, just dusted other prodigies like
Speaker 2: made them look like just lumps of unmolded clay, done
Speaker 2: by an artist prodigy with terrible visual spatial skills. Essentially,
Speaker 2: I love it. But he's but he was worth his
Speaker 2: whole his own episode. It was a good episode. But
Speaker 2: his dad, Boris was taught him from a very early age,
Speaker 2: essentially from basically when he was born, and he essentially
Speaker 2: claimed responsibility. There's another very famous prodigy whose name was
Speaker 2: Winnifred Sackville Stoner junior, and her mom was Winnifred Sackville
Speaker 2: Stoner senior, and her mom claimed responsibility for her child's prodigy.
Speaker 2: We'll talk a little bit more about them, but parents
Speaker 2: do play a huge role, even when even if it's
Speaker 2: not quite as far as some of them boast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, if you're going to be
Speaker 1: a prodigy at golf or tennis or you know, piano
Speaker 1: or something like that, it requires you know, those those
Speaker 1: things aren't cheap. I mean, certainly there are stories of
Speaker 1: people who from a family that maybe you know, didn't
Speaker 1: have the kind of resources that other families might have
Speaker 1: that you know, find a local municipal golf course where
Speaker 1: they can go and play super cheap. But those are
Speaker 1: like those are kind of rich kid sports pianos cost
Speaker 1: a lot of money. So a lot of times with
Speaker 1: these if you look at the parents in the family situation,
Speaker 1: they are very involved parents who have resources to make
Speaker 1: it happen, not only with equipment, but dedicating the time
Speaker 1: and hiring a lot of times at very expensive hourly rates,
Speaker 1: like masters in that thing to help teach that kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, you can boil it down to
Speaker 2: a handful of factors that parents play a large role in. First,
Speaker 2: you have to start that with the kid has a
Speaker 2: natural ability, right, you don't teach that that has to
Speaker 2: exist already.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Then that the kid has to have access to those teachers.
Speaker 2: And like you said, these aren't Joe Schmoe teachers like
Speaker 2: teaching out of their house on the side for a
Speaker 2: little extra cash. These are like the best of the
Speaker 2: best teacher experts in this field. That's who the parents
Speaker 2: need to have the resources to pay, and those teachers
Speaker 2: have to come in at just the right moment. I
Speaker 2: don't think it's necessarily down to the minute, but they
Speaker 2: have to come pretty early in the kid's development so
Speaker 2: that the kid doesn't get bored because they've gone as
Speaker 2: far as they can go, or because they don't necessarily
Speaker 2: understand what would even be next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or you know, you might get lucky and have
Speaker 1: that within your own family, like I I mean, I
Speaker 1: think Wolfgang van Halen. I don't know what age he
Speaker 1: achieved his level of talent, but you know he had
Speaker 1: a built in situation with his father and was the
Speaker 1: touring bassist and backup singer with Van Halen when he
Speaker 1: was like sixteen years old, and can play everything, like
Speaker 1: I mean, he's not just a guitar guy, but he
Speaker 1: plays on his records with his band Mammoth. He plays
Speaker 1: it all. He plays the drums, he plays the keyboards,
Speaker 1: he plays the bass, he plays the guitar, he does
Speaker 1: all the singing. He's like, you know, he's a prodigy,
Speaker 1: and he had a built in teacher as a you know,
Speaker 1: one of the greatest guitar players of all time.
Speaker 2: I thought you were joking. I didn't realize that Eddie
Speaker 2: van Halen's son is named Wolfgang. I thought you were
Speaker 2: making a joke about Mozart.
Speaker 1: We no, I mean that is kind of funny.
Speaker 2: Well, Mozart's father is he was a music teacher as well.
Speaker 1: And his name was Eddie Vnhalen.
Speaker 2: Sorry. Yeah, so yeah, if you have a like you said,
Speaker 2: a built in family member already that knows what they're
Speaker 2: doing and can teach you at least early on, that
Speaker 2: helps a lot. I think also Picasso, his father was
Speaker 2: an art instructor, but oh I didn't know that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Picasso just excelled way beyond his father, very very early on.
Speaker 2: I think his father also kind of took that a
Speaker 2: little personally. Seems like the type.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, there are some exceptions here, Like
Speaker 1: with everything, it's not like every single prodigy has had
Speaker 1: the means and the resources and the parents that threw
Speaker 1: everything at them to try and help them. And one
Speaker 1: notable exception Julia found was Blaize Pascal, the French math prodigy.
Speaker 1: He was born in sixteen twenty three and at the
Speaker 1: beginning of his schooling, his dad very famous appetition. At
Speaker 1: the end, Pascal said, I want my kid to learn
Speaker 1: more than math, and math is so interesting. If he
Speaker 1: gets a hold of these math books. He's going to
Speaker 1: ignore everything else because math is so incredible, and so
Speaker 1: he hid all the math books in his house. But
Speaker 1: young Pascal got an outdated math book somehow that was
Speaker 1: in English, even though he only spoke French. And he
Speaker 1: was so smart in such a prodigy, he translated that
Speaker 1: and reinvented parts of that of like geometry in that
Speaker 1: book that weren't in the book.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, he also came up with probability theory later on.
Speaker 2: Like he was definitely a math prodigy, and so he
Speaker 2: overcame an absence of material. There's also some good examples
Speaker 2: of prodigies who overcame a like an absence of resources, right, So,
Speaker 2: like they came from very poor families, like Stevie Wonder
Speaker 2: is a very good example of that, self taught musician
Speaker 2: on all sorts different instruments, and his parents did not
Speaker 2: have their resources to buy them all these things. There
Speaker 2: was another guy from the turn of the last century
Speaker 2: named Srinivasa Ramanujohn and he was very poor in India,
Speaker 2: came from a very poor family, and he, like Blaize Pascal,
Speaker 2: got his hands on an outdated math book and just
Speaker 2: taught himself math and became he ended up studying at Cambridge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean, there are definitely those examples,
Speaker 1: but they're they're also on the other side, like plenty
Speaker 1: of examples of you know, the the nurture thing going
Speaker 1: in a bad direction. Yeah, where the parents have and
Speaker 1: I know we Julie didn't cover this, but in our
Speaker 1: book we covered. Do you remember who wrote that chapter, by.
Speaker 2: The way, I think it was yours.
Speaker 1: I think it was too so long ago. I don't remember,
Speaker 1: I know you mean, but I think it might have
Speaker 1: been mine because I remember very much wanting to include
Speaker 1: and did include in the book the story of Time Marinovich,
Speaker 1: who was a prodigious quarterback, and another you know example
Speaker 1: at Jennifer Capriotti, the tennis prodigy. Like they were kids
Speaker 1: who were both excelling to the point where they were
Speaker 1: young teenagers and sports illustrated being written about, and they
Speaker 1: were pushed by these overbearing fathers in their case, and
Speaker 1: they both burned out and washed out and ended up,
Speaker 1: you know, having problems with drugs and problems with the
Speaker 1: law and stuff like that. So there are some pretty
Speaker 1: sad cases there where parents take what could potentially be
Speaker 1: a good thing and just ruin it because their parents.
Speaker 2: You know, I was reading today about Venus and Serena
Speaker 2: Williams and their tennis prodigy status. I guess, but yeah, Richard,
Speaker 2: their father, Richard Williams, he had Venus turned pro at
Speaker 2: age fourteen because the USTA was about to release the
Speaker 2: Kapriati rule, which was like U king urn pro after
Speaker 2: a certain age because Jack Dicapriotti was such a cautionary tale.
Speaker 2: So before the rule could be passed, Richard was like,
Speaker 2: you're turning pro now. And her debut she beat number
Speaker 2: sixty six and almost beat number the top seeded player
Speaker 2: at her first professional tournament age fourteen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Boy, those William's sisters were fun, or still are fun
Speaker 1: to watch. I didn't see that movie, did you, King Richard?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't. Okay, moving on, Yeah, we have nothing
Speaker 2: to say about it then, apparently.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of moving on, we're to the point where
Speaker 1: we talk about when you're not a prodigy anymore, because
Speaker 1: you mentioned early on you know, once you have mastered
Speaker 1: this thing, that's it, and a lot of times that
Speaker 1: is it. Some you know, there are different stories. Some
Speaker 1: some flame out and go down a bad road. Some
Speaker 1: go on to have you know, great careers doing their thing,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned Mozart obviously, but some going to have
Speaker 1: great careers and it's not like a super famous situation
Speaker 1: like Mozart, but they do great for themselves. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's like being a child movie star, Like once you
Speaker 1: reach a certain age, that sort of appeal might be
Speaker 1: over the adorableness of the kid that can play the
Speaker 1: piano at ten years old, right, and you're just an
Speaker 1: adult who can play the piano really well, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you're not special anymore, and that can
Speaker 1: lead to a big fall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it can because you're essentially, especially at the
Speaker 2: early on in the twentieth century when the papers would
Speaker 2: track you down and ask your opinion as a child prodigy,
Speaker 2: you were a child star essentially, and that is not
Speaker 2: something that society has figured out how to handle properly.
Speaker 2: We don't know what to do with child stars, so
Speaker 2: instead we just chew them up and spit them out
Speaker 2: and say good luck, we don't need you any longer.
Speaker 2: That same effect in general can happen to child prodigies,
Speaker 2: and one really good example is Bobby Fisher. He's He's, He's.
Speaker 2: The cautionary tale for child prodigies and how bad things
Speaker 2: can get after you're not a prodigy anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, he was the chess prodigy. I've recommended
Speaker 1: it before, but the great, great film Searching for Bobby
Speaker 1: Fischer is so so good, highly recommended. But he was
Speaker 1: born in Chicago in the forties, was playing competitive chess
Speaker 1: by the age of eight and when the US opened
Speaker 1: at fourteen, and became the youngest international grand master at
Speaker 1: fifteen years old in nineteen fifty eight. Fifteen years old
Speaker 1: in six months. But when his career fell, he fell
Speaker 1: hard and spent a couple of decades roaming around southern
Speaker 1: California destitute. He spent nine months in a Japanese prison,
Speaker 1: and is kind of known, you know, for the last
Speaker 1: couple of decades of his life as being a pretty
Speaker 1: hateful anti Semite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he he. I don't know if he had
Speaker 2: a blog or something like that, but after nine to
Speaker 2: eleven he publicly celebrated it on his blog, like he yeah,
Speaker 2: he really just took some seriously weird turns, and yeah
Speaker 2: he was. He's just a great example of how bad
Speaker 2: things can get after society's done with you and you're
Speaker 2: not useful anymore not adorable or noteworthy. I think also
Speaker 2: he clearly had some mental health issues that were yeah,
Speaker 2: probably going to emerge either way.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, being a.
Speaker 2: Child prodigy and it's such a weird way to grow
Speaker 2: up that could not have helped at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, there are other cases of kids,
Speaker 1: and here's a piece of advice. You can do what
Speaker 1: you want if you've got a really pretty genius kid,
Speaker 1: but don't send your kid to college at like twelve
Speaker 1: years old. Now, I just I don't see that ever
Speaker 1: leading to good things. I think you should try and
Speaker 1: normalize a child's childhood as much as possible, even if
Speaker 1: they're you know, unchallenged in school. There are other ways
Speaker 1: that you can foster that, I think, besides saying you're
Speaker 1: going to Harvard at eleven and you're going to be
Speaker 1: in the newspapers for that. The case of Elizabeth Benson,
Speaker 1: she was a two hundred and fourteen plus IQ kid
Speaker 1: who went to college at twelve and graduated and disappeared.
Speaker 1: And later on that was one of those like where
Speaker 1: are they now? Articles? And this is no shade at
Speaker 1: somebody who's a cashier. It's a fine job, and we
Speaker 1: need cashiers. But the article very much was like this
Speaker 1: former child prodigy is now just a cashier, and that
Speaker 1: was sort of how it was framed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but despite that, she kept like batting away that
Speaker 2: that kind of sentiment and just talking about how happy
Speaker 2: she was. She's she was married. She was very happy
Speaker 2: with her very normal life with her very normal husband.
Speaker 2: And this is a person like a two hundred and fourteen,
Speaker 2: it has a plus next to it, which might as
Speaker 2: well be an asterisk. She scored perfectly on an IQ test.
Speaker 2: And the reason that plus is there is because they
Speaker 2: imagined she could have kept going, but they ran out
Speaker 2: of questions.
Speaker 1: Y got a question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she and she even considered herself in the
Speaker 2: art article. She said, you know, based on the stories
Speaker 2: of some of my peers, like I actually got off
Speaker 2: pretty well, Like I'm happy with life as an adult, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, she's an example of one that went pretty well.
Speaker 2: But the best that you could do if you don't
Speaker 2: eventually turn into an adult who starts contributing greatly to
Speaker 2: your fields of interest, like Mozart, like John von Newman,
Speaker 2: like Pablo Picasso, the best you can hope for is
Speaker 2: to lead a normal life as an adult.
Speaker 1: You know, I keep thinking you're gonna say John bon
Speaker 1: Job every time.
Speaker 2: I keep wanting to call him Johann too, and it's
Speaker 2: not oh interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned Winnifred Sackville Stoner Junior or early on.
Speaker 1: She was a language prodigy in the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: probably most famous for in fourteen hundred ninety two Columbus
Speaker 1: Aaled the Ocean Blue was written by Winnifred Sackville Stoner Junior.
Speaker 1: But her mom was one of those parents that really
Speaker 1: really pushed her a parent mm hm, and gained a
Speaker 1: lot of fame. Like the mother did, she wrote books
Speaker 1: about it. Was sort of like Royal Tanninbaum's when Ethelene Tannenbaum,
Speaker 1: you know, talked about her prodigious family of children. And
Speaker 1: I think we mentioned the tann and bombs in the book,
Speaker 1: of course, because I wrote the chapter. Yeah, that's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite movies. But the mom gained a lot
Speaker 1: of attention and was on the like the lecture circuit
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and the daughter was like, you know,
Speaker 1: take my advice, dear mothers, spare your children from so
Speaker 1: called fame which easily turns to shame, and be happy
Speaker 1: if you have a happy, healthy, contented boy or girl,
Speaker 1: Amen to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great advice, great advice. So if you have
Speaker 2: a child prodigy on your hands, trade carefully, console experts,
Speaker 2: maybe get in touch with Ellen Winner. I'm sure she'd
Speaker 2: be very happy to speak with you and tell you
Speaker 2: what not to do. So there you go. That's our
Speaker 2: annual dose of advice for the parents of child prodigies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I also want to say, I bet it's
Speaker 1: not the easiest thing though, to be fair to parents,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it puts them in a tough position
Speaker 1: if your kid is obsessed with this one thing and
Speaker 1: clearly super gifted, because you don't want to squash that.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a tight rope you're walking there,
Speaker 1: so you know, I get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's not a position I would
Speaker 2: necessarily want to be in. But heck no, you've got
Speaker 2: some really great fodder for your your annual Christmas letter
Speaker 2: that you send out with your Christmas card.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: You want to make your your sister in Boise feel jealous.
Speaker 2: You talk about you talk about your child prodigy and
Speaker 2: what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've only known one person in my life that
Speaker 1: does that, and that is an Emily's family. Her aunt
Speaker 1: Peg sends out the annual Christmas sort of family catch
Speaker 1: up thing, and I've always just been delighted to read
Speaker 1: it and thought it was super cool and wondered why
Speaker 1: no one in my lousy family ever cared enough to
Speaker 1: do anything.
Speaker 2: That's a very so high o thing to do.
Speaker 1: Oh is it okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah? For sure, I get it. Before we go on
Speaker 2: to listener mail, Chuck, I just want to point out
Speaker 2: a couple of at least one good band and album
Speaker 2: named Rage Semaster.
Speaker 1: Oh, very nice.
Speaker 2: And then I think you could make a pretty good
Speaker 2: bon Jovi tribute band with Johann bon Jovi, right.
Speaker 1: Or John bon JOHI yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2: John von Newman, by the way, we can get that
Speaker 2: except for stuff you should know listen, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: What were you going to say, because I want to
Speaker 2: hear what out?
Speaker 1: You know what I was going to say?
Speaker 2: Do you say it?
Speaker 1: Bada bing bada boom Banjovi?
Speaker 2: And there Chuck has unlocked listed her mail.
Speaker 1: This is a correction of sorts, and this is something
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I'm glad to know when we did
Speaker 1: our USAID episode we were talking about condoms for Gaza.
Speaker 1: This is from Bernie. He said, I think you guys
Speaker 1: did a great job. Just wanted to clarify something. Fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars for condoms was not for Gaza as in
Speaker 1: Gaza next to Israel. It was for Gaza Province and Mozambique.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk even correct this in one of his weird
Speaker 1: Oval Office press conferences, but as you said, the SoundBite
Speaker 1: had already gone out and people did not want to
Speaker 1: hear any retraction to what they now believe. So glad
Speaker 1: you guys covered this topic is so important globally. Someone
Speaker 1: who's been in this line of work for my entire
Speaker 1: adult life, this episode really hit home to me. Keep
Speaker 1: up the great work, all the best, Bernie F. Chavis.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Bernie. That was very gentle correction and
Speaker 2: we appreciate those rather than I can't believe you guys
Speaker 2: screwed this up this badly, which we get once in
Speaker 2: a while, but for the most part we hear gentle
Speaker 2: corrections like Bernie, So hats off to you and thanks
Speaker 2: for setting us straight. Bernie. If you want to be
Speaker 2: like Bernie and send us an email, you can. You
Speaker 2: can send it off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
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