Were Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci born brilliant or did they acquire their intelligence through effort? No one knows for sure, but telling people the latter – that hard work trumps genes – causes instant changes in the brain and may make them more willing to strive for success, indicates a new study from Michigan State University.
The findings suggest the human brain is more receptive to the message that intelligence comes from the environment, regardless of whether it’s true. And this simple message, said lead investigator Hans Schroder, may ultimately prompt us to work harder.
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2014/nature-or-nurture-its-all-about-the-message/
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Monday September 08 2014, @05:02AM
I get the idea that each and every one of us has some special little thing we do really well - problem is we usually are doing something else to economically survive.
I am sure Einstein's exposure to everyone's ideas as he worked as a clerk in the patent office gave him a good leg up on the inventive process. He managed to work into something he was good at. I have heard rumors he had the most unusual of forgetfulness problems as he was so fixated on his science study... I guess they have another name for it today. Autism. maybe?
I see it in myself - I see it in others too. Seems like we are all tools in the box. There are a few things we are really good at, however society may not place much value on it. There are a few things we can do if we put a significant effort in it ( and we won't enjoy doing it either!!! ). And there are a lot of things we will screw up so bad it would have been better if we had never touched the thing.
We usually find out what those things are after we have been around a bit and wised up as to what to mess with and what to leave alone.
And there is the rub... there is often no call for that which we have the gift to do. I believe a few very lucky people end up having the output of their obsession wanted by someone else. The result is most of us go ahead and do our obsession anyway, but its just for personal gratification, not profit.
Then do something else that we are not all that good at "for the man" to get financial support.
If it wasn't for the war, and our intense need to make weapons, how many "famous scientists" would have never been known?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by nyder on Monday September 08 2014, @05:19AM
... If it wasn't for the war, and our intense need to make weapons, how many "famous scientists" would have never been known?
You know, we should try it that way, lets go a few centuries without war and see what happens?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by davester666 on Monday September 08 2014, @06:06AM
So, you've found your skill. Posting nonesence on the internet.
Your mother would be so proud.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Monday September 08 2014, @12:37PM
Your mother should teach you to spell "nonsense".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday September 08 2014, @02:39PM
My guess on this is that scientists with the same funding without a war going on would have done roughly the same work as scientists who did have a war hanging over their heads. For example, Einstein's most important work happened before the war, von Braun did about as much rocketry research after WW II as during it, Turing did a great deal of important work both before and after the war, and so forth. There's a good chance that the effect of the war was diverting scientists from what they wanted to work on towards what would help with the war effort.
If you want to maximize scientific output, the formula for doing that appears to be:
1. Set up a nice, comfortable building or set of buildings.
2. Hire a bunch of really smart people to work in that building.
3. Place minimal limits on what those people can do with their time.
4. To the degree possible, give them the equipment they're asking for.
That's the formula used at the Library of Alexandria, the Baghdad House of Wisdom, Oxford University, and lots of other very successful research institutions. It really works - those smart people talking to each other and trying things and sharing ideas and messing around creates really useful results. You're trying to create an environment where the introduction is: "Here is your office and laboratory. The supply closet is here - if you can't find what you need, ask Bill in purchasing. The cafeteria is here - most of your colleagues head down there for lunch between 11:30 and 1. Any questions? Alright, get to work!"
The problem is that the sort of people who want to control others can't stand the fact that they'll end up paying and supplying people to sit around trying to make Space Wars work on an old PDP-10. Because that can't possibly lead to anything useful, at least in the short term.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NoMaster on Monday September 08 2014, @05:59AM
But does it make them more likely to achieve it?
Is hard work necessarily correlated with success? Or is that just another lie people tell themselves to (a) lift their spirits or (b) validate themselves, depending on which end of the 'success' curve they're standing?
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 08 2014, @06:51AM
Within a specific environment yes, hard work does correlate loosely with success. Between environments, no, it does not at all.
Here is a small thought experiment. There are two geniuses that live in the same country and the same socioeconomic class. Dunning-Kruger being what it is, they both believe they are losers that will never amount to anything. One then is inspired to hope for whatever reason and chooses to try anyway. Over time, clearly the odds are that a genius that tries to make something out of himself will indeed outperform a disheartened one. How much he will outperform is an entirely different question.
Now for a second thought experiment. Two geniuses again, both highly motivated to succeed. One of them lives in New York and was born into a median income family. The other lives in Juba, the capitol of South Sudan and was also born into a median income family. Who do you think will prosper more?
Effort, ability, and opportunity are all necessary for success. The only real question is in the amounts of each that are needed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kell on Monday September 08 2014, @07:18AM
Effort, ability, and opportunity are all necessary for success.
But importantly, only one of those is within the control of the individual. If ability and opportunity are no there, effort might not be enough; if ability and opportunity abound, effort might not be necessary. Whatever the case, if you want to be successful, the logical policy is to try your hardest.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday September 08 2014, @08:41AM
It seems to me (not a biologist, but interested in the stuff) that this has already been thoroughly settled. Genetics determines your potential. To what degree you achieve your potential (environment/nurture) is a separate and almost completely independent question.
If Einstein had been born on the plains of Mongolia, he might have been the best herd-counter on the plains, but he wouldn't have discovered relativity. Meanwhile, how many other people were in same environment as Einstein, but without his potential, and hence didn't discover relativity?
Insert here all manner of other examples, like marathon runners, musicians, etc.
For anyone who didn't read TFA, it comes down to this: encourage each and every person to achieve all that they can. Guess what, this encouragement will cause them to do better, to realize more of their potential. This is surely unsurprising and obvious? Using nature-vs-nurture as the means for framing that encouragement was gratuitous and unnecessary.
People keep trotting out the "nature-vs-nurture" argument as if there is some sort of uncertainty. There isn't. This is like religious nutcases trotting out creationism: denial of a reality that doesn't meet with their personal approval.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday September 08 2014, @05:40PM
if you want to see the active matching of genetic potential to effective deployment just look at professional sports!
The education system is keyed to produce factory workers (a very good TED talk highlighted this).
Humanity was very lucky that the combination of education was around to produce Einsteins breakthrough. It took 4 centuries from Newton...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TGV on Monday September 08 2014, @11:47AM
There are problems with such studies, as has been seen in the so-called "embodied cognition" studies. These studies also claimed cognitive effects from unlikely or previously unconsidered sources, but many studies turned out to be irreproducible. There might be all kind of other explanations for this effect too, especially in the case of the Schroder study. Perhaps there was a smaller memory load for one condition than the other, perhaps it was a fluke, perhaps a side effect of the particular EEG analyis. But it is unlikely that memorizing a simplistic message can hold sway over our performance on simple tasks, and we would never have noticed before. So until this has been replicated in different settings, it cannot be considered sufficiently supported.