I think we’re feeling two different legs of the elephant, so to speak—or there may just be vast inequalities in education as in everything else these days.
I’d have to do quite a bit of searching to get hard backing statistics, but consider, for instance, the average age at which a young scientist achieves an independent position or tenure, or the average publication quantity of people who do get positions, or even (so I’ve heard) the average publication quantity/quality of people who get into graduate school. As far as I know, these indicators have very much been increasing over time; there may even be a causative link: grade inflation at the lower end of the system causing grade deflation the further up you go.
(For example, I’m told that it’s now difficult to get into graduate school if you don’t already have authorship on a publication.)
There’s also anecdotes like these, indicating that people (at least, aspiring Officially Smart People) are being taught more mathematics at an earlier age than previously.
I’d have to do quite a bit of searching to get hard backing statistics, but consider, for instance, the average age at which a young scientist achieves an independent position or tenure, or the average publication quantity of people who do get positions, or even (so I’ve heard) the average publication quantity/quality of people who get into graduate school.
That slash is a division bar, right? ;-)
(More seriously: Sure, students today might know much more maths than Newton did, but being able to learn calculus from a teacher and/or a textbook is a much lower bar than being able to invent calculus from scratch.)
(More seriously: Sure, students today might know much more maths than Newton did, but being able to learn calculus from a teacher and/or a textbook is a much lower bar than being able to invent calculus from scratch.)
True. But the average Maths PhD today is doing something Newton could never have invented at all. Yes, we do stand on the shoulders of giants nowadays, as did Newton, but picking higher-hanging fruit (say: the Standard Model compared to classical mechanics) requires both a greater knowledge of maths and a greater creative effort.
Anyway, point being, I simply don’t feel able to believe that “incredibly high general intelligence” is truly the determining factor of even Famous Historical Hero-level science. There seem to be lots of other things going on.
I think we’re feeling two different legs of the elephant, so to speak—or there may just be vast inequalities in education as in everything else these days.
I’d have to do quite a bit of searching to get hard backing statistics, but consider, for instance, the average age at which a young scientist achieves an independent position or tenure, or the average publication quantity of people who do get positions, or even (so I’ve heard) the average publication quantity/quality of people who get into graduate school. As far as I know, these indicators have very much been increasing over time; there may even be a causative link: grade inflation at the lower end of the system causing grade deflation the further up you go.
(For example, I’m told that it’s now difficult to get into graduate school if you don’t already have authorship on a publication.)
There’s also anecdotes like these, indicating that people (at least, aspiring Officially Smart People) are being taught more mathematics at an earlier age than previously.
I wish we had some hard data to clear things up.
That slash is a division bar, right? ;-)
(More seriously: Sure, students today might know much more maths than Newton did, but being able to learn calculus from a teacher and/or a textbook is a much lower bar than being able to invent calculus from scratch.)
True. But the average Maths PhD today is doing something Newton could never have invented at all. Yes, we do stand on the shoulders of giants nowadays, as did Newton, but picking higher-hanging fruit (say: the Standard Model compared to classical mechanics) requires both a greater knowledge of maths and a greater creative effort.
Anyway, point being, I simply don’t feel able to believe that “incredibly high general intelligence” is truly the determining factor of even Famous Historical Hero-level science. There seem to be lots of other things going on.