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An interesting article about the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) program and their findings.
Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY), which would transform how gifted children are identified and supported by the US education system. As the longest-running current longitudinal survey of intellectually talented children, SMPY has for 45 years tracked the careers and accomplishments of some 5,000 individuals, many of whom have gone on to become high-achieving scientists. The study's ever-growing data set has generated more than 400 papers and several books, and provided key insights into how to spot and develop talent in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) and beyond.
With the first SMPY recruits now at the peak of their careers, what has become clear is how much the precociously gifted outweigh the rest of society in their influence. Many of the innovators who are advancing science, technology and culture are those whose unique cognitive abilities were identified and supported in their early years through enrichment programmes such as Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth—which Stanley began in the 1980s as an adjunct to SMPY. At the start, both the study and the centre were open to young adolescents who scored in the top 1% on university entrance exams.Pioneering mathematicians Terence Tao and Lenhard Ng were one-percenters, as were Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and musician Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga), who all passed through the Hopkins centre.
[...] Such results contradict long-established ideas suggesting that expert performance is built mainly through practice—that anyone can get to the top with enough focused effort of the right kind. SMPY, by contrast, suggests that early cognitive ability has more effect on achievement than either deliberate practice or environmental factors such as socio-economic status. The research emphasizes the importance of nurturing precocious children, at a time when the prevailing focus in the United States and other countries is on improving the performance of struggling students. At the same time, the work to identify and support academically talented students has raised troubling questions about the risks of labelling children, and the shortfalls of talent searches and standardized tests as a means of identifying high-potential students, especially in poor and rural districts.
[...] Although gifted-education specialists herald the expansion of talent-development options in the United States, the benefits have mostly been limited so far to students who are at the top of both the talent and socio-economic curves.
[Also covered by]: NATURE
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday September 08 2016, @11:09PM
I agreed with you right up until you got to Trump... :)
How about the fact that he could have been far wealthier by NOT starting all these companies and just sitting on his money?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-probably-better-investing-donald-233020366.html [yahoo.com]
I don't think it's a sign of any great success or brilliance that someone who was given millions by their parents has mostly managed to hold on to it. And while the guy *does* have some skill dealing with people, I think a lot of his charisma is just pure wealth. People will listen to *anyone* with that much money -- just like you, they assume that if he's rich he *must* be brilliant. But the real world is rarely that fair.
Not that the rest of what you say is at all untrue, I just think Trump is a rather poor example.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday September 10 2016, @02:34AM
It's striking to me how you read Yahoo! News as well as Soylent, which does not have corporate media sponsorship.
Donald Trump has had 4 companies go bankrupt.
One of Hillary's triumphs as Secretary was bringing China into the World Trade Organization which bankrupted hundreds of thousands of American companies, and her direct decisions led to millions of American jobs being lost.
So what was that you implied about only wanting to vote for somebody who's never made a mistake? :)
"has mostly managed to hold on to it."
For the record, Donald Trump is wealthier now, and has his thumbs in more pies around the world, than his father or anyone in his family ever had before. He is not "holding on" he is innovating, and with innovation comes failure. Ask Thomas Edison. I don't know how to state an objective truth which directly contradicts your stated position more simply.
"I think a lot of his charisma is just pure wealth."
Does Paris Hilton have charisma? Can Bill or Melinda Gates rally a crowd of tens of thousands locally, or millions nationally, to thunderous and heartfelt applause? Please answer the question directly and truly, because so long as we are on planet Earth the answer is absolutely no. There is something else at play with Trump.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday September 12 2016, @08:34PM
I don't particularly read Yahoo! news, I just used Firefox search and that was the best/first result. It's been pretty widely reported.
Who exactly are you replying to here? Because I see nothing in my post that implies that in any way...
You can be wealthier without being particularly successful. The point is he could have stuffed that money in an index fund and been *even wealthier* than he already is. Which means the performance of his business ventures was below average. Sure, he made money. If you stick a twenty bucks in a savings account for a year that will also make money. Just because you have more money doesn't mean you were successful or did great things. It's all about what you compare it to. And with all that work he did, all those companies he started, just compared to sticking it in a fund and doing no work at all Trump still came out behind.
Are you telling me Paris Hilton isn't famous and doesn't have fans? That Bill has never spoken to a packed auditorium at a conference? Seriously? Granted, when Gates gets up there and talks about software development...well, not that many people care about software development. If Gates decided to run for president and got up on stage promising to violate the very laws of physics and magically solve all the world's problems, I'm sure he'd have just as big of a following. But Gates isn't quite narcissistic enough to do that.
(Did I just say something positive about Bill Gates? I think I'm gonna vomit... ;) )