WEBVTT - The Sad Story of William James Sidis 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.600 Heart Radio. Hey, you're welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:17.520 There's Charles W Chuck Bryant over there, and it's just 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.959 us today. And that's fine because it's a Thursday. We 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:23.159 get a little crazy on Thursday. So we have a 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:29.000 potluckum today. I brought Gavelta fish and Chuck doesn't like it. 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.840 But we're just moving forward and this is stuff you 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.400 should know. I think it's good. I brought my my 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:41.760 deviled eggs. Yeah they're good. Thank you. You took my 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:48.200 advice and used the secret ingredient Coleman's mustard. Oh of course, 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.319 friends who are weigh into Coleman's. By the way, it's 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:54.160 really great in deviled eggs. I'm not kidding. I believe it. 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:55.840 I'm sure if you're a mustard fan, it's the one 0:00:55.840 --> 0:01:00.920 to go to. Oh yeah, you hate mustard for remember 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.280 the narrative I hate mustard And he refused to accept that. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:07.600 it's just so bonkers that I can't wrap my head 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:10.760 around it, I guess is the problem. Speaking of narrative, 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:17.080 this this story today is a bit of a cautionary 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:23.560 tale on narratives. I think, oh, well, well put um 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:25.240 and you know, we'll get into it here in a second. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.920 But it's the story of a of a young genius prodigy. 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.640 And in researching this there you know a lot of 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:36.160 conflicting accounts about how his home life was and how 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.360 his parents treated him, and uh, it's a story of 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:46.720 media sensationalism, and it's a story of parents who were 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:48.880 ahead of the curve in a lot of ways for 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.120 the time. But also I don't know about victims, but 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.640 also just sort of fell into the usual state of 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.680 parenthood at the time, which is end of the very 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:00.680 sort of beginning of the twenties and reso, it's not 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:05.880 like parenting then, let's that it's at its peak, you know. Yeah, no, 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:09.360 And you can also say that his parents, conceivably and 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:14.040 him went against the grain of normalcy and status quo, 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.280 and that um, you know, the American public immedia kind 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.120 of bristled at that, and that they were treated poorly 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.680 for that. And so you know, do we how much 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:25.839 do we need to question of what what is said 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.079 about them from you know, journalism at the time, And 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:33.519 it's a it's a big morass, basically, I think to 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:37.480 paraphrase what you're saying. It's a cautionary tale about making 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.480 cautionary tales out of anything, right, Yeah, although I do 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:46.040 think this is a cautionary tale. But okay, so we'll 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.520 we'll we'll get to the end. Well, in the end, 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.639 we'll reveal what you think it's a cautionary tale about. Yeah, 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.119 and you know, well, let's just get into it. Let's 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:59.919 let's talk about William James. Is it sidis or side 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.560 it situs? Is it side ice? I don't think. So 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:06.959 that's what you keep in your pocket for when you've 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.800 got some lukewarm soda. Well, just like everything else with 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.160 this guy, heard a couple of different pronunciations on YouTube, 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.040 so so I saw it's it spelled out a couple 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:17.920 of different places that seem to know what they were 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:22.120 talking about side us, Yeah, with the emphasis on the side. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.520 But I had not heard of him before, had you. Yeah. 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:29.400 I mean we did a chapter in our book on prodigies, 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:34.160 and um, I he wasn't in the book, but I 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.400 remember reading a little bit about him at the time, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:41.560 and I think just the whole idea of child prodigies really, um, 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:43.720 it's super fascinating to me. So I would like to 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.720 do one on Prodigies, maybe tackled. That would be maybe 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:51.760 one of the first book chapters we retrofit as a podcast. Okay, cool, Yeah, 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.280 but yeah, they just have always fascinated me. And Billy 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.720 was interesting in that a lot of times prodigies are 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:03.760 prodigies in like a single discipline, not serily saying they're 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.120 big dumb dumbs everywhere else, but there's like one major focus. 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:11.520 But young Billy was a language prodigy, a math and 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:16.720 science prodigy. He was just a well rounded kind of 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:21.200 no a lot kid. Yeah, he really was, and he was. 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.919 He's very frequently lifted up as the prodigy, perhaps the 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.840 most gifted child that has ever lived, certainly at least 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.120 in the recorded history in the West, and maybe the 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:39.640 smartest human. Yeah, it's entirely possible. Yeah it is. Which 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:41.520 I think is another thing that will really come up 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.680 in that Prodigies episode is you know exactly how do 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.520 you how do you say who's the smartest and who's not? 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.480 Is it you know? Or i Q tests reliable? Which 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:52.880 I think in addition to Prodigies, we need to do 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.520 one just on i Q tests took Yeah, and I 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:57.520 also want to go ahead and correct myself when I 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:59.960 said he was well rounded, he was academically well round, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.240 did because as we will see, he was not very 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.800 well rounded as a young child. Uh, and that was 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.919 one of the major mistakes that his parents made, Yeah, 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.320 for sure. UM And one of the other things that 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.040 he's also often kind of held out as an example of, 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.320 is this this burning question that we still have today, 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:24.520 is um, are gifted children the products of their environment? 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:29.599 Like can you just take basically any child and make 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:35.720 them a gifted prodigy? Um? Or is it you know, genetics? 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.000 Is it really just you know, is that we're gifted 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.200 apt apt you know, where like you're you're kind of 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:43.320 born with this. You didn't do anything to earn it 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.240 or deserve it. You just it's just who you are. 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.279 You're a gifted, intelligent person from a very early age. 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:51.520 And we still haven't gotten to the bottom of that. 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.200 But um and he actually he he kind of muddies 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.360 that the answer to that question more than answers it 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:02.119 at all, you know, because I mean, I definitely believe 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.200 that you were born gifted, but then from the moment 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:09.600 you're born on everything else plays in. So he comes 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.440 one of the reason I think he he muddies the 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.640 The answer to that question is he comes from very 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.520 intelligent stock. Both his mother and his father were extremely 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.760 intelligent people, um, but they also were the kind of 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:30.080 people who tried to educate him starting around age two, 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.240 maybe even a little earlier. So he's an amalgamation of 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.720 those two things. Parents who were incredibly intelligent who would 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.839 have ostensibly passed along some pretty smart jenes um, and 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.880 parents who you know, made him produced an environment for 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:49.080 him that made him into, you know, a prodigious learner. Yeah. 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:52.080 So let's let's start with his folks. His dad, Boris. 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.360 They were both Russian immigrants, and his dad was put 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.040 in jail and Russia before he managed to get out 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.440 of there for apparently in a prison that was so 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.120 small he couldn't even recline himself fully in sleep and 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:07.200 to sleep in a little like fetal position, I think, 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:12.880 And he was he was jailed for for teaching, and 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:15.400 he he was teaching peasants. He didn't have permission. They 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.720 didn't like that in Russia. He was let out after 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.000 a couple of years on the condition that he didn't 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.840 teach other people how to read anymore. And supposedly didn't 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:27.600 read himself, was under surveillance, but then got the heck 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.440 out of there. Yeah, he was like, I see the 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:32.160 writing on the wall. It's time for me to get 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.000 out of here. I'm going to go to America. Because 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:37.920 at the time, America was this shining beacon for immigrants 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.880 saying come, We're a land of opportunity. We turned the 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.680 lights on in the Statue of Liberty. Tom Brocott did 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:50.120 it himself and just like a motel six and um, 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.320 it's uh, it's it's the doors are open basically, So 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:58.320 he and Sarah um Billy's mom both took America up 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.720 on that, although separately. They actually met in America, although 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.760 they were both from the Ukraine, I believe, yeah, and 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:07.840 Boris he he sort of bucked a lot of trends 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.440 back then, and this was in the late eighteen hundreds. 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:14.440 He was an atheist, um, which was you know, not 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.520 in fashion at the time. He later got into like 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:20.160 he made a big name for himself in the early 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:24.080 days of psychology and psychoanalysis, and he was an opponent 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.320 of Freud, which was certainly rocked the boat at the time. 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:32.080 And then he really despised traditional education and kind of 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:34.439 all its forms and the way it was back then, 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.520 particularly wrote memorization, it was he just hated it so 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.400 much he saw zero value in it whatsoever. And so 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.160 like that's kind of the basis of his concept of 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.760 educating not just children but anybody. It's figure out what 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.760 the basics are, learned the basics, the fundamentals, and then 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:56.600 use those to reason your way to answer basically any 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.920 question that you possibly could have. And that that idea 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:04.680 applies to everything from philosophy to math, to literature to 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.240 history to language. That you can figure anything out if 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:10.920 you understand just a few fundamentals of it. And so 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.479 that's what his big focus was on. That. Yes, Sarah, 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:18.640 his mother, Um, she worked your way through college, paid 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.640 for it herself. She worked as a nurse at night, 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.040 went to medical school during the day. I believe was 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.680 the first woman admitted to Boston medical school or medical college. 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:32.200 And she never became a doctor, though she instead chose 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.840 to parent. And Um, they both worked their way to 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:38.480 the I mean, by the time they came to the 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.440 East Coast in the eighteen eighties, they both worked their 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.360 way to the top of as high as you could 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.480 get in academic achievement in the United States. I think 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:52.600 Boris had his bachelor's and masters from Harvard in three years. 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.920 And uh, yes, Sarah went to Boston. You and that 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:01.280 they were both overachievers and obviously had a kid. I 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.320 never really They had a daughter named Helena, but I 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:07.680 didn't see how much she achieved. I don't know either, 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.080 although I saw that she and her brother shared a 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.800 lot of similar interests, so they were close throughout his 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.440 whole life. I'm sure she was pretty smart too, Yeah, 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:20.760 I would guess so too. Dumb, No, for certainly not um. 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.640 But but the the one of the things about Boris 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.160 and Sarah's both of them. Everything you just described that 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.880 they achieved in America, they did within ten years of arriving. 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:32.199 And when they both arrived, neither one of them spoke 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.040 a word of English. They went from speaking no English 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.600 to things like m d s and pH ds within 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.840 ten years, so they made quite a splash. Um. And 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:46.360 Boris himself enjoys kind of a separate fame from his 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:50.439 son as well. He was a really well um respected, 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:56.440 uh pioneer in psychology. I believe he was um instructed 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.080 under William James, who was considered one of the two 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:03.760 founders of psych pology, who basically believed that behavior human 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:08.560 behavior um was a way that humans adapt to our environment. 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.080 And so if you could just kind of study the environment, 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:13.520 study behavior, you can just kind of understand the world 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:16.240 that much better. And that was his kind of foundation 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.920 for psychology. And um Boris sitis was, you know, one 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:26.559 of his proteges um and he uh, bores it is. Yeah, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:31.360 it does, um, But the uh man, you really threw 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:33.640 me off with bores itis because now I can't stop 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:39.920 thinking about what bores itis is. Enlarged foot. Sure, the 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.400 bores ITAs like a big cartoony like keep on trucking 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.160 guy foot, but just one of them. And then now 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.640 we can put it to bed, thank you, because I 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:52.520 think it would have thrown off the whole rest of 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.080 the episode if we hadn't just addressed it on his face, 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:59.520 you know. So um he so Boris Um looked up 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:01.640 to Williams so much he named his son after him. 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:06.960 It's William James sitis Um. But so he was respected 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.880 in his in his own right as well. But it 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.840 was it was Billy who became like far and away 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.000 the most famous Situs, and it was largely because his 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:22.280 parents really welcomed the spotlight and then realized far too 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.360 late in Billy's life that that was not a good 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.040 thing for a kid. Yeah, should we go over the 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:34.240 you took up these from Sarah Situs is another condition? Um, 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.520 you put ciitus on anything. Yeah, I guess you have 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:43.480 to have two syllables like Josh sidis doesn't sound like it. No, Yeah, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:49.960 you're absolutely right, Chuck situs. I guess it's like a 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.040 it's something that ground beef can come down with or 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.719 Jerry scitus. Yes, sure that has something to do with me. 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:02.320 So it's me so overload like the blue man who 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.840 took too much copper. This is um. You just turn 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.040 you just start smelling like me, so it comes out 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:10.480 of your ears. Uh so should we I think before 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:12.719 our break, maybe let's run over um what you dug 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.400 up from Sarah Sitas is one know if this is 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:17.439 from her book that she wrote later, but she kind 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:23.160 of outlined her and they're parenting sort of checklist, which 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:24.840 when you read it it does not seem like a 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.920 parenting checklist from the early nineteen hundreds. No, it's super progressive, 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.280 isn't it. It is in a lot of ways. Uh. 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.160 Then I'll get to the part that they kind of 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.760 really forget at the end. But um, avoid punishment and 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:41.520 always possible, not bad. Why because it's the first cause 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:46.840 of fear. Pretty sensible. Sensible. Uh, try not to say 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:51.240 don't to your children. Instead explain why what you say 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.600 is so, that's awesome. That's a good one. A lot 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:58.199 of these are still very valid. Um awakened curiosity for sure. 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.520 Never failed to answer and never put off your child's questions. 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:04.800 Probably the hardest thing to do as a parent, but 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:09.840 valid right because they come hard and fast. Uh. Never 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.080 force your child to learn, nor judge their ability to 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.600 learn by adult standards. Now, that's a big one for 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:20.160 them that I wonder if they really abided by either 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.800 that or they did abide by it and they were 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.960 they were misinterpreted and miss labeled later on, you know. 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.280 Um there's a few more here. Implant ideas at bedtime, 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.280 just before sleep. I don't know about the science behind that, 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:40.400 but it sounds reasonable. Sure, Like when your child is 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.520 going off to slumber land, you can introduce them to 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.920 the concept that they'll die eventually one day and it 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.480 really sticks in their head. Uh. Never lie to your 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:56.440 child or use evasions if that's impossible, but sure, uh, 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.880 refrain from showing him off. I think that's where they 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:04.560 really dropped the ball. Yeah, that's almost revisionists to add that, 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.400 because there's just no way that they knew that from 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:10.720 the get go. They just didn't follow it. They didn't 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.320 even seem to consider following it. And I think they 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:18.240 really grossly overestimated the warmth of the response the public 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.520 would would greet young William with, yeah, and then the 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:23.600 big one that I think it just wasn't a thing 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:25.360 back then, So I'm going to give them a pass. 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:28.680 But we now know so much about social and what 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:33.000 they call social emotional development and teaching and parenting, and 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.480 it just didn't really exist back then, and and young 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.160 Billy certainly didn't get any of that, so he writ 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.440 he suffered for that reason. So they released this, and 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:51.560 American parents responded by saying, we're tired just reading this list, right? Yeah? 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.360 Uh so should we take that break so we can 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.440 get some rest? All right, I gotta go put up 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.560 this big foot. Let it relax for a little bit. 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:24.120 You have Boris itists. So it took we kind of 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:28.800 went over um Boris and Sarah's list on you know, 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:32.120 how to raise a child, and it kind of underscores 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:36.000 this premise that was basically the entire premise of boris 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.920 Is approach to childhood education was that if you, um, 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.360 if you do this with a kid, if you if 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:46.160 you say okay, you know the um, if you create 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.800 curiosity and interest in a child and then nurture it 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.320 with lots of books and like, you know, lectures and 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.440 whatever you can find to keep the kid's curiosity going 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.360 and just feed seven. If they have a question or 0:16:58.400 --> 0:16:59.880 something like that, you just sit down with them and 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.760 talk it out. That if you do this and you 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:05.600 start a young enough age, you know, by the time 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:10.040 your kid is you know, they should be at least 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.480 as intelligent, if not more intelligent, than an average adult. 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:16.800 And his premise was that you could do this with 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.919 any kid, and that you kind of should do this 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.360 with any kid. And their proof of concept was their 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:28.480 son Billy, who had a really impressive list of accomplishments 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:30.680 to his credit by the time he was like eight, 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:32.920 nine or ten. Right, Yeah, I mean, we'll go through 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:34.920 some of these. I think some of these maybe take 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.760 with a grain of salt, because records from the early 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.239 nineteen hundreds are what they are, and his story has 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:45.480 been sort of Um, I don't know the best word 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:50.960 is convoluted, exaggerated in place, maybe exaggerated in places. But 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:52.800 I don't want to take anything away from because a 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:54.439 lot of it checks out too. But let's just go 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.200 go through him. Um. Supposedly, at eighteen months was reading 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:02.520 the New York Times uh by three, New Latin by six, 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:09.040 uh New Russian, French, German, Hebrew, Armenian, and Turkish. Was 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:14.639 typing letters at three to Macy's about Christmas toys. Very cute, right. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:17.879 I also saw that he taught himself to eat with 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.879 a spoon by eight months old, through trial and error. 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:25.480 All right, that's I've seen babies do that, an eight 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:29.560 month old baby. Yeah, it's hard to remember, Okay, alright, 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.600 what else? Maybe not? I don't know. It just seems 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:34.840 like something that baby would be like, I don't know what, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:37.000 this would be more likely to go in their eye 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:38.800 or their ear than there in their mouth. You know, 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.000 I'm trying to remember. It's all a blur. Uh. Let 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:46.360 me see. He apparently graduated. I mean, he went through 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.680 grade school and like no time, he entered the first 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:53.359 grade and graduated in through primary school entirely in seven months. 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.120 It was basically like Billy Madison, Yeah, which I've never seen, 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.560 but I know the story. Between six an eight he 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.320 wrote at least four books. Uh. In At eight he 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.600 passed the Harvard Medical School anatomy exam and then the 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.080 entrance exam to M I T. And also at eight 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.800 and then at his own language called in a book 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.560 called The book was called Book of Vendorgood and the 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.320 language was vendor Goood. Yeah, not like you know, just 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:21.719 some gibberish or whatever. He took from like Latin and 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.840 Greek and some of the Romance languages and figured out 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.119 different ways to conjugate um words based on these this 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.439 language and like he created his own language. It wasn't 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.879 just some lame thing where words were replaced with words 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.920 and I think they were like eight cases something grammatical cases. Yeah. 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.520 It was really impressive stuff. Um. And it was the 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:44.520 kind of thing I saw somebody put it, like a 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:48.399 linguistics professor would have been, you know, well received for 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:52.440 having written a book where they debuted their own language. 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:54.840 And this kid was doing it and you know before 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:59.280 he was ten. Yeah, so he's he's flying through school. Um, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.480 This is all going great as far as the plan 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:05.800 that his parents had to raise a really, really smart kid. 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:09.000 But a very bad thing happened as he was doing this, 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:13.000 and the press noticed, Um, when you get into Harvard 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.880 at nine years old. Um, they didn't let him untill 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:17.560 he was eleven, but when you know, that's going to 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:20.960 be a news story. And by nine when he when 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.920 he entered Harvard as an eleven year old, it was 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:28.600 it was the full court press from the media. Apparently 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:30.720 he would and this is before he went to Harvard. 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.480 He would come home from elementary and high school and 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.200 there would be like two photographers waiting outside his place, 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.160 and one of them would hold him while the other 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:43.040 one would take his picture, like physically hold him. Yeah, 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.040 Like he had no saying this what he would be accosted. Yeah, 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:48.760 so I hear this, and I think that's awful. The 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.280 media is terrible. But I also I think, like, where 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.320 where where was his mom? Where was his dad? While 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.600 these photographers are holding him out in the street. Well, 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:00.399 you know, he's a free range kid, I guess in 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:04.960 that respect, And that's pretty bad. That's definitely a very 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.439 unpleasant thing from childhood, and even worse that would basically 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.760 lay the groundwork for his relationship with the media from 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:15.120 that point on, and they would just keep going after him. 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:17.800 Even after he'd been out of the limelight for decades, 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.239 they would still they'd be like, whatever happened to that 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.840 weirdo Billy Sitis and um they look him up and 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.120 write an article on him, and it would he he 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.600 was just as we'll see, he became a very private person. 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.440 Was a huge invasion of his privacy. But that's where 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.360 the whole thing started. But one of the other reasons 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:36.840 I think also that he was such a private person 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:40.520 and that the media spotlight was even worse to him 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.359 than it would have been for any other child his 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:47.000 age is that you touched on it. I think earlier 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:51.280 that his father is showed play like there was no 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:55.040 play involved. There was no socialization with his peers. There 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.560 was no encouragement whatsoever for him to make friends, And 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:00.439 I get the impression there was actually bit of a 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.600 prohibition on him going out and making friends because his 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:06.520 friends couldn't have possibly kept up with him, So how 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.280 could he possibly be enriched by hanging out with other 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.080 eight year olds? And I think his family kind of 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.280 acknowledged that later on that that was a huge misstep 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:17.160 and if they didn't, the rest of the world has 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.120 has admitted it for them, and they've they've been vilified 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:21.840 in a lot of ways for doing that, and I 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:25.200 think rightfully so like if they've if they've been vilified, 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.800 not all of it can be justified, but there's a 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:31.879 couple of things that you can be like, yes, that 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:34.800 was a really bad thing to do with Billy, and 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:37.000 it messed him up, and that was a big one 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:41.280 of them for sure. Uh. He when he got to Harvard, 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:45.040 he started showing his um massive capacity for math and 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:49.560 mathematical courses. He was designing his own log arrythmic tables. 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:54.440 He gave his first lecture, uh, including to faculty when 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:58.240 he was eleven years old, to the Harvard Mathematical Club 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:02.640 about four dimensional bodies. And then you know, he sort 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:06.000 of had apparently he had his little act down um 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:09.600 with the press. He would introduce himself and he would 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:11.960 he would try and you know, I think he was 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:16.440 described as precocious a lot, but it came across I mean, 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:19.080 precocious is sort of a nice way of saying that 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:21.560 he was rude to a lot of adults who he 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:24.840 thought he was smarter than yes, and I don't think 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:27.720 he was ever really taught any different by his parents. 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:30.560 The thing is, though, is like that's a really good 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:33.239 anecdote and it does illustrate like what he was like 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:37.720 at age eleven, granted, But the problem is is because 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:41.000 you have so many, so few anecdotes about him, that 0:23:41.080 --> 0:23:43.520 it gives you the impression that he was a jerk. 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:46.879