WEBVTT - What makes a genius? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:07.480 It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:16.599 from House Stuff Works dot com. Ahoy, and welcome to 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.799 the love boat. I'm Julie, your cruise director, with me 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:22.919 as always as Isaac, your bartender. How are you doing? 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.880 I just did the little double gun the double guns 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.320 looking good. You're a genius. Thank you for coming up 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.400 with that. Thank you. You're a genius to chuck, thank you. 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:34.839 Do you want to know how we can callague to 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:39.640 each other geniuses without cracking up? I'm cracking up on 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:42.920 the inside, but sure, because we have no idea what 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.520 constitutes a genius, do we? Right? We like to throw 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.320 the word around, as you were pointing out earlier. Oh, 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.560 he's a genius, or he's a socialist, story's a fascist, 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.720 he's a genius. You should see the bathroom he designed. 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.520 He's genius. You know. Yeah, it definitely is a word 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:03.040 that gets to run a lot. But the way that 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:07.039 we use the word genius now, actually uh is kind 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:11.000 of a throwback to its original meaning in the Greco 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.040 Roman era, the word genius when everyone was wrestling. Yeah, 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.640 like you could be a genius at wrestling. Really? What 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:22.920 it what it? What it described was somebody's um natural 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:30.040 enthusiasm inclination towards certain activities, not just your your abilities, 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:32.560 but you know how revved up you were, so so 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.800 somebody who was pretty good at bathroom design would have 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:41.080 been considered a genius at bathroom designs. Like the word vintage, 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.560 people always thinks vintage just means old, But I think 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.880 vintage specifically means like characterized by that person's best work, 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.720 like a tailor, their best five pairs of pants they made. 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:55.800 I think so I might just learned that just now 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:57.800 I might be wrong thanks to you. Are we picking 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:01.360 up Jerry's laugh? Because we're in a yeah, two ft 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:05.080 by two ft space right now? This room is not genius. No, 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.080 it stinks of volatile organic compounds. We should say what. 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.920 They actually moved us for one day into an even 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.640 smaller office like the sign Felds. Remember when Castanza they 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.000 kept moving him around because they didn't like him, and 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:19.720 he were eventually going to end up in a storage 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.320 closet like he did. Yeah, I think we've arrived there. 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.960 I'm sure it's lovely. It's just not for podcasting. Well, 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:30.560 I'm a little lightheaded. So if this, if this goes oddly, 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.560 that's why it's the paints and the airplane glue. That's 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.920 airplane glue. Is genius, it is. Yeah, we were talking 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.360 about genius for some reason. Where are we? Yeah? Because 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.000 this is about genius. Okay, Oh so yeah, I was 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:49.520 saying the original idea of genius was enthusiasm, throwing yourself 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:54.360 into something where you were into right. Um. And then 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.880 thanks to a guy named Francis Galton, who he was 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:00.880 a pretty smart guy himself, but he had a long 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.480 history of just kind of missing the big picture with 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.560 his ideas, he came up with eugenics. Sure, he was 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.880 the first one to start attributing um genius to intellect. 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.079 He kind of narrowed it a little more, and eventually 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:22.480 this led to our idea of genius being quantifiable e g. 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:31.040 Through i Q tests or g which we'll get to. Nice. Nice, Yeah, Yeah, 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:32.720 I don't. I'll just go ahead and say I don't 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.200 know how quantifiable it is. Well, it's not. And there's 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:40.560 actually two pretty big reasons why quantifying genius is virtually 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.400 impossible at least with our current understanding of the mind. 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.920 And they are they are uh Well, the first one 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.440 is pretty obvious. Genius is a very subjective thing. Um. 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.760 Some people think it's like an i Q higher than 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.840 one forty or one seventy five I've heard, which you know, 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:06.120 that's just a smart quantifying, quantify quantifier And I'm clearly 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:08.920 no genius. And the other thing is, like you said, 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.280 it's a it's a big picture thing. In science and 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.280 medical inquiries, that kind of thing is all about the detail. 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:17.080 So it's really hard to like analyze and study. It's 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.120 like studying intercessory prayer. How do you study that? How 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:27.039 do you quantify happiness or prayer or genius? You know? Um, 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.480 our colleague Tracy V. Wilson, I like how she put it. Yeah, 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.640 she did a good job just kind of getting rid 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.000 of the crud that's often associated with genius. And and 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.560 just if you have like crazy hair and a big 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:41.960 mustache and you know math, you're a genius, do you 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.560 get rid of all that? And uh, for the for 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:48.600 the purposes of this podcast, will adopt her description, right, 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:54.280 which was that a genius is an extraordinarily intelligent person 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.840 who breaks new ground with discoveries, inventions, or works of art. Right, 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.760 Because you can't just be a really smart person, you 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.960 have to do something with it to truly be a genius. 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.000 That's what makes a genius. It's not just intelligence, it's 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.520 intelligence with creative energy. Well, the creative part is huge, 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:13.800 and we'll get to that, but it's um She goes 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.560 on to say, and I agree that they usually will 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:18.520 change the way we look at the world, or at 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.240 least the way people in whatever field they're in look 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.040 at their field. They make a difference or difference makers. 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.000 Have you ever heard of a guy named William James 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:32.359 sidis Now, he reportedly had the highest um i Q 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.919 in history. I'm higher than ask Maryland of Parade. As 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.520 a matter of fact, yes, asked Maryland says, hers is 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.280 two thirty. She claims the highest ever measured. This guy 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:45.200 supposedly was to fifty. Yeah. Um, let me let me 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.320 keep you more than a q a at the end 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:51.000 of Parade magazine. Sadly, no really, Okay, So let me 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.239 let me give you a little background on sittence. Okay, uh. 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.080 He was eighteen months old when he started reading the 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:01.640 New York Times. Okay, so far so uh. At two 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.839 he taught himself Latin. Three, he taught himself Greek. Uh. 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:09.200 He could speak more than forty languages by the time 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.880 he was an adult. Uh. He graduated kum laude at 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:17.359 sixteen from Harvard and became the youngest professor ever in 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.839 the history of Rice University. I imagine he was like 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:24.920 seventeen or something. Who's a young guy, and then within 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.800 I think about a year at Rice, he dropped his 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.880 position and spent the rest of his life working like 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.320 menial jobs. He went from job to job just doing 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.840 normal labor. So he's not a genius though he would 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.240 not qualify as a genius by this definition. You have 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.040 a two ft Q. You're clearly a prodigy. You're an 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.960 incredibly brilliant person. But if you don't contribute to humanity, 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:51.920 what are you worth? You're like a Buddhist monk who 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.840 goes and spends your life meditating in a cave. We 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.480 curse you, sorry, but but that's that's the point. And 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.159 geniuses are incredibly valuable in society. I don't remember what 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:06.680 podcast it was in what we were talking about, um 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.960 mauthis and the idea that the more the larger the 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:17.440 world population, the more incidents of the births of geniuses happens. Right, Uh, 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.000 and then the more geniuses you have, the further along 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.800 society is helped by leaps and bounds. Right, Well, if 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.960 you think MENSA is a quantifier, then there's about three 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.200 million geniuses in the US. But I don't buy that, 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:34.560 right because MENSA standards, UM, they accept people who well 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.760 it's not just like you, but standardized intelligence tests. Um, 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.280 they accept people who score within the top two percent 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:47.120 of those. So if you just extend that with basic 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.920 math to percent of the population in the US is 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.680 like six million people, right, and then thirty million worldwide. 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.040 But I don't buy it anyway, because they don't even 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.400 count in the creative element. You know, Gina Davis is 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:02.200 in mensa that everyone always says that. Anytime you hear 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.320 about MENSA, people go, you know, Gina Davis, even I 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:06.600 think we had this conversation you brought up Ronny Harlan 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.680 and yeah, the the Pirate movie they made. Let's play 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:14.520 the clip, shall we? No? Okay we won't. Um, just 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.320 get back to she just spit bologny out of her mouth. 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.160 She shouldn't be eating bologny anyway. I did her a favor. 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:22.880 You're right, so you wanna talk about the brain is 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.200 that where we're going. Let's let's get to it. I mean, 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:27.440 like if if you're going to go in search your 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:32.080 genius with or without Leonard Nimoy, Um, you are going 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:33.800 to start looking in the brain, right. I love that 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:38.880 show the best. It's awesome, so super seventies. Um, so 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.120 let's go into the brain. Clearly we're gonna find our 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:45.400 answers here, right, Maybe no, no, but we should talk 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:47.800 about it. The cerebral cortex, as we all know, is 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.360 the largest and outermost part of your brain, and this 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:54.040 is where the higher functions like thought and reasoning happen 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:58.360 as opposed to lower functions like just basic survival that 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.199 kind of thing, right, And the basic stuff is found 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.320 in your brain stem, which is how Mike the chicken 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.120 was able to live for so long. That's right. Uh, 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:10.120 the cortex is cerebral cortex is divided into lobes, and 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:14.440 within those lobes are regions that help you handle specific tasks. 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:17.800 And uh, we do know it has a big impact 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:20.320 on how we think, but it's a little tricky to 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:24.559 study because one reason that Tracy point out, which I 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:26.199 thought was really valid, is to get an m R 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.680 I done, you're lying there in a tube. They can't 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.920 actively study how your brain operates on a day to 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:35.960 day basis, why you're functioning, which is the great failing 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.120 of the wonder machine. Yeah, I bet you they can 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.200 solve that one day. Oh they will definitely, And by 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.600 they I mean people other than you, me or Jerry. 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:47.160 It's some genius perhaps precisely. But she did point out 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:49.960 a cool study from cal Irvine in two thousand four 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.120 and they they did pinpoint that the volume of gray 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:56.880 matter in parts of the cerebral cortex has a greater 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.720 impact on your overall intelligence than how law your brain is. 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:05.079 Because we talked about that in the Einstein thing, right, Yeah, 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:09.280 the gray matter, h man, I know, the white matter transmits. 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.320 The gray matter is like a problem solving. I believe 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.600 in white matter is used to transmit information. But Einstein's 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.480 brain was smaller than your average bear's brain. It was. 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.080 Remember we talked about what happened to his brain and 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.559 um when what they finally found. The big distinction they 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:29.199 found in his brain that was abnormal was that his 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:35.280 prietal lobe was almost missing this fissure within it that 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:37.720 most people have. So he had a very narrow fissure 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:43.720 and they also wider, and so had a big prietal lobe, 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.640 which is responsible for century and put, but it also 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:50.400 handles things like mathematics. Unsurprisingly enough, so he had a 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.000 big prival lobe with a small fishure in between it, 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.920 which they theorized means or meant that his his pridal 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:01.120 lobe could communicate with itself more a fishly more effectively, 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:06.160 and a genius was born by Josh Youers. He proved 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.280 that Adams Adams exist. He figured out that light behaves 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.760 as a particle and a wave. He developed the theory 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:16.120 of relativity and the famous equation equals mc squared by six. 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:19.120 Where were you and by that age? I wish I 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.839 could remember, Chuck me too. You were you were? Were 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.959 you following fish around or something like that? Wire panic, Yeah, yeah, 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.360 I was. I think I was living in New Jersey 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:32.040 at the time, but I goofed around enough in Athens. 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:35.280 I wasn't coming up with theories of relativity, nor was 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:39.320 I know I was thrown a lot of darts. Some 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.880 other interesting aspects of the brain um is that it 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.360 actually develops. It goes from thicker to thinner as we age, 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:51.200 So it goes from undeveloped to the cerebral cortex thickening, 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:57.120 and then after adolescence or maybe during adolescence it begins 0:11:57.160 --> 0:11:59.840 to thin, right, And what the what a study in 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.240 Nature I think two thousand and six found was that 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:08.960 UM kids whose brains thick and faster in youth tended 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.400 to have higher i Q s. And the reason that 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.560 this could be significant is that they we we tend 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:18.200 to find intelligence is an inherited trait or what appears 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.160 to be an inherited trait. So this is a physical 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:25.440 example of how uh intelligence could be inherited through organic 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:29.640 structure of the brain. So that's intelligence, but that's not genius. 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.079 But we can't even we But at the same time, 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:37.600 we can't even really describe intelligence. Like consider, let's let's 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.800 talk about the i Q tests, all right. The are 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:45.440 our big um arousal for the i Q test began 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.760 in the in the mid nineteen twenties when a psychologist 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:54.240 named Katherine Morris Cox published UM The Early Mental Traits 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:57.320 of Three Geniuses, and basically she went back from and 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.280 it was exhaustive. She used like fift sources and studied 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:07.360 the the work the traits, the UM contributions of three 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.719 hundred actually three hundred and one. Oun't know why she 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.080 called it three hundred, but three hundred one Great minds 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.960 and then basically gave them an i Q test based 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.079 on this uh and came up in. The highest rated 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.800 one was Johann Gurta, very nice thank you. Did you 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.480 know he had a theory of evolution like seventy five 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.160 years before Darwin? Yeah, and he came up with human chemistry. 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:31.920 He was a smart guy. But he cocked in at 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.200 number one, at two fifty or to ten. Sorry, not 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.200 bad at all. But as this book came out and 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:42.400 became you know, um, the public became aware of it, 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:44.360 it was like, hey, we didn't know about these i 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.120 Q tests. Is awesome, we can start measuring how smart 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.320 people are. Ironically, the earliest i Q tests were used 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:54.679 to measure mental handicaps and children. Yeah, but then they 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.600 started figuring out, hey, you can use this for gifted 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.480 kids to find the gifted kids as well, and the 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.679 Stanford psychologist U mixed with the first guy who came 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:06.920 up with the i Q test, bin At. The two 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:10.080 together formed the Stanford Binet IQ tests that we used today. 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.400 Have you ever had yours done I refused to I 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.280 never will. I took one at one point, but it 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.040 wasn't like the standard test. It was just some hackneyed version, 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.680 and I scored really high. That's the reason I know 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.480 that it was pretty much BS because I'm kind of smart, 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:29.360 but not anything like Uh I scored. I didn't. I 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.960 don't put any stock into it, but chuck, I guess 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:36.160 that kind of underscores um. A really good criticism of 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:40.160 i Q tests is that they may be standardized, they 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:43.720 may be widely accepted, but we aren't percent sure that 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.440 they measure everything. So I wouldn't even say we're sure 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:53.920 they measure everything. The measure mathematical aptitude, language abilities, um, 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:57.120 what else? Uh? Well, yeah, sure, along with memory and 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:01.240 spatial ability. Okay, but is that every Well No, in 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:05.120 any standardized test, the word itself kind of says it all. 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.520 It's standardized, right. No standardized tests that you give different 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.880 people can really tell you the same thing about all 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:12.680 those different people. No, I can't. And I mean the 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:18.320 very questions that the test test asks. Wow, these pain 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.000 themes are really getting on top of me. Uh, the 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:26.880 very questions that these tests ask um actually can be biased? Um? 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.880 I heard, I heard of I think an S A T. 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:32.760 I hope it wasn't an S A T question. It's 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.000 a little too easy. But um, some sort of standardized 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.280 tests asked the question which of these places would you 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:41.680 go to buy milk? And it was like grocery store, 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:46.120 convenience store, dairy or something like that. You can buy 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.280 milk at all those Josh, well you can. But I mean, 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.640 like for kids out in the sticks where there isn't 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.120 a grocery store, but there's a convenience store, that's where 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:54.960 they go to buy their milk. But they missed the 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:57.640 question because the answer was supposed to be grocery store. 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.520 It's a it's a pretty dumb examp ample, but it's accurate. 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.840 I mean, the very people who write the tests are 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.120 biased in some ways, and i Q tests have been 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:14.200 shown to skew against um certain ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Yeah, sure, 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.080 same say, any standardized test does so boo boo to. 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.440 That is what I say. And the other thing, too, 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:25.320 is is that geniuses don't, like people can generally consider genius, 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.240 don't necessarily score well in these tests anyway. No, that's true. 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:30.520 To throw it out the door, I say, Um, I 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:32.600 will say that just while we might as well give 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:37.920 a little information on the IQ test. The standard score 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.520 is a hundred with the deviation of sixteen, So the 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.680 average score of the general population will be between eighty 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:49.640 four and one sixteen. Right, but no one knows what 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.480 over that indicates a genius. A widely accepted number is 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.840 one forty. But somebody just made that up at some 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:58.680 point in time. Well, like I said, I read one. 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.440 And it's not to say that a really high score 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.520 doesn't mean you're a genius, like it could mean you're 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.480 a genius. The i Q test is capturing something, probably, 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:11.840 but it's not capturing the whole picture, I think is 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:13.720 the point we're trying to make right here, right, not 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.080 at all. So let's leave the i Q test in 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:21.280 our dust. Okay, maybe we should go with Steinberg's I'm sorry, 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.600 Sternberg's try arch theory. I kind of like that. Yeah, 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:29.960 there are some competing explanations of what components there are 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.320 to intellect, right, Yeah, Sternberg said that he thought it um. 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.959 Human intelligence includes a few things plus the try arc. 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:42.320 Creative intelligence, so the ability to generate new ideas, interesting ideas, 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:47.200 analytical intelligence so you can examine facts, draw conclusions that's 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.560 pretty good and practical intelligence, which means you can fit 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:56.080 into your environment, which like kind of yeah, But I disagree, man. 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.320 I went back and reread that a couple of times, 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.119 and you know, Racy points out that there are a 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:05.880 lot of critics of you know, um practical intelligences. Everybody 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:07.920 has that to a certain degree, that does that really 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:11.520 count to towards being a genius? I disagree. I've met 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:13.959 some people who well, I mean, think about it. It's 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:18.200 the classic example of somebody who's very book smart, but 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.680 you should never let walk down an alley by themselves 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:25.480 and by himself for her. So many many people like that. Sure, 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.479 and then there's you know, the super street smart um 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.479 ratso Rizzo, you know, who can make his way him 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.639 Jersey Midnight cowboy here exactly, who who can make his 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.119 way in the world, but you know, would probably do 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.440 horribly on an IQ test. The very fact that there 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.639 there are those different um polar extremes means to me 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:51.159 that there's something to that that is an aspect of intellect, right, 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.000 And you remember I mentioned g earlier. I didn't want 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.359 to leave people hanging there. But the i Q test 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.640 they have come up with a unit and they call 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.720 that unit for intelligence g right, and that's actually i 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:06.119 Q tests are under a larger umbrella of what's called psychometrics, 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:10.560 which is basically the study of an attempt of the 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:15.000 measurement of intelligence. Right yeah. Um. Back in the seventies, 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.119 there is a statistician named Carl your skog you're a 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:24.560 skog weird, um, and he figured out that you. He 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.560 figured out a way to measure intelligence that basically lead 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.160 to the appearance of three different kinds of intelligence. While 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:35.600 we're on theories of intelligence, right, okay, he came up 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:41.480 with um fluid intelligence, right, yes, okay, And this is 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:43.960 basically coming up with new ideas on your own to 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:51.160 solve problems. Crystallized intelligence is UM understanding already established techniques 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.560 of problem solving and being able to identify which technique 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:58.840 will best work to solve a particular problem. And then 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.119 there's visual spatial reasoning, which is UM kind of an 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:06.600 aptitude at creating mental images in your head to solve problems. 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:10.760 It's very important part of mathematics. Actually, So we have 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:17.480 your Scogg's ideas, we've got um, what's your guy's name, Sternberg's. 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.120 Let's talk about Howard Gardner, and he has the feel 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:25.760 good we're all geniuses kind of theory, right, Yeah, multiple intelligence. 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:32.200 He thinks there's seven types linguistic, logical, mathematic, musical, bodily, kinetic, 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:37.480 I'm sorry, kinesthetic, spatial, which is always in there, uh intrapersonal, 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.560 and interpersonal. But that's, like you said, it's a little 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:43.800 too uh broad, is what a lot of critics say. 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:46.040 There's always a critic of each of these. It seems 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.040 like one person comes out with something and people say, well, 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:50.760 I think that sounds good, and then another part of 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.080 the camp says, no, I don't agree at all. Isn't 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:56.399 that the way with everything they chook? Pretty much like 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:59.159 mountain dew code read is the greatest drink ever. No, 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.080 it's not gular, Mountain Dews way better. Good point um. 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:07.800 And then I guess another hallmark of intelligence, something that 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:15.480 can be measured, is geniuses aptitude toward social awkwardness. Yeah, 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:17.520 there's a lot of them. Are generally known as quirky, 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:24.040 odd characters makeup friends John Nash did. Yeah, absolutely. Einstein 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:25.960 was sort of a wacky guy. Yeah, he liked to 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.600 stick his tongue out, he was zany. Yeah, that people 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.000 always pointed that picture. So you look how crazy he was. 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:35.600 Got anyone else? Well, let's talk about studying that. Yes, Josh, 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:39.560 a Purdue uh study perdue you saw four and twenty 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:44.000 three students gifted students and suggested that they were more 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:49.080 susceptible to being bullied. So they're little mammy panbies, I 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.080 guess a little bit. Also, there was a study UM 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.840 out of was it Stanford That it was a twenty 0:21:55.920 --> 0:22:00.359 year study actually UM that ended in ninety that actually 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:06.159 gave UM children aptitude tests and personal adjustment tests and 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.680 found that there was a negative correlation between i Q 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:15.159 and social adjustment. Right, So basically it's it's quantifying what 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:17.840 we all already know that if you're a smart kid, 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:21.160 you're going to eat mud several times in your life. Yes, 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:23.760 I never ate mud. That's why my IQ score was 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:28.119 bs uh. Well, one thing that they geniuses have in common, 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:30.560 I think we can all agree on that you need 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:33.000 to have to be a genius and not just smart. 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:39.240 This creative intelligence and high waisted pants. Creative intelligence and 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:41.560 high waisted pants. This is where it all comes together 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:43.800 to me, right, Yeah, I mean when we talked about 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.520 this earlier, like you can't. It's not good enough to 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:48.760 just be smart. Then you're just a really intelligent person. 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:55.120 That leap between intelligence and genius is bridged by creative prowess. Yeah, 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:57.760 that's how you break new ground. Right, Why did you 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:00.680 point it me? Because promise was a horrible I like that, 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:03.760 thanks man. The thing is, though, Josher's is that, uh, 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.600 this is another thing that you can't quantify and study necessarily, 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:11.400 So once again it's hard to kind of pinpoint creativity 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:16.600 and imagination. Although they researchers do think that creative people 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:21.240 have less latent inhibition, and I completely agree with that, right. Yeah, 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:24.400 we've talked about that with the Thinking cap episodes where 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:28.120 schizophrenics have low latent inhibition and they take this extra 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:31.119 stimuli and their brain constructs solution hallucinations out of it. 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:36.040 The idea was that creative geniuses, who who have low 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.119 latent inhibition take this additional stimuli and use it in 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:43.159 novel creative ways. Yeah, that's one way of looking at it. 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:46.720 There's also um a quantifiable method or a couple of 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:52.720 them to determine how much um creativity a genius has 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:56.399 lent to the world. Right, It isn't that article you 0:23:56.840 --> 0:23:58.800 that time article you sent me. I thought that was 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:02.240 kind of lame. Explain but that this is the level 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:05.560