you need both tail-end education and tail-end genetics to become a “genius.”
Perhaps we should distinguish between being a “genius” like a supersmart person who succeeds at whetever he touches, and being a “genius at X” like achieving extreme results in some specific area.
To use your example, Von Neumann was a genius, but he wasn’t a chess grandmaster. He did great things at many areas he tried, but chess wasn’t one of them. Was it just a question of priorities? Or was his talent somehow compatible with math and computer science, and incompatible with chess? (Like, I am sure he would be good at chess, but maybe not grandmaster-level good.)
So, back to the topic of genius production. Are we just trying to produce general geniuses, and let them randomly find their field of interest? Or is there a specific area where we want huge progress?
My guess about education would be that is more important to make the information available (separate expert books from pseudoscientific nonsense, provide a free access to the library) rather than school in the usual sense. A tutor would be good, especially someone who can answer the followup questions after reading the books.
OK, trying a bit more of tabooing the “genius”. What you need is:
a person with sufficient intelligence to understand the topic
who happens to be interested in the topic
good literature available
some tutoring at the beginning (saves time, maybe provides motivation)
a company of peers later (allows debating advanced topics)
environment that supports studying (nutrition, free time, no distracting conflicts)
Traditional school provides an ineffective version of the tutoring, textbooks, time dedicated to learning, and peers (for an average student). All things considered, that is quite good (for an average student).
But to achieve a genius level, you probably need to optimize much harder in all directions. A personal tutor, at least once in a while. More advanced literature. A genius at high school age might need to discuss the topic with university students.
The question is, what happens if the potential genius is simply not interested. This may happen quite often, and may be undocumented because of selection effect (we only learn about the potential geniuses who became actual geniuses). How many of them change their minds later? How many switch to another track and become geniuses there? (Perhaps we should support track switching.) How many just never become interested at anything important?
Perhaps we should distinguish between being a “genius” like a supersmart person who succeeds at whetever he touches, and being a “genius at X” like achieving extreme results in some specific area.
To use your example, Von Neumann was a genius, but he wasn’t a chess grandmaster. He did great things at many areas he tried, but chess wasn’t one of them. Was it just a question of priorities? Or was his talent somehow compatible with math and computer science, and incompatible with chess? (Like, I am sure he would be good at chess, but maybe not grandmaster-level good.)
So, back to the topic of genius production. Are we just trying to produce general geniuses, and let them randomly find their field of interest? Or is there a specific area where we want huge progress?
My guess about education would be that is more important to make the information available (separate expert books from pseudoscientific nonsense, provide a free access to the library) rather than school in the usual sense. A tutor would be good, especially someone who can answer the followup questions after reading the books.
OK, trying a bit more of tabooing the “genius”. What you need is:
a person with sufficient intelligence to understand the topic
who happens to be interested in the topic
good literature available
some tutoring at the beginning (saves time, maybe provides motivation)
a company of peers later (allows debating advanced topics)
environment that supports studying (nutrition, free time, no distracting conflicts)
Traditional school provides an ineffective version of the tutoring, textbooks, time dedicated to learning, and peers (for an average student). All things considered, that is quite good (for an average student).
But to achieve a genius level, you probably need to optimize much harder in all directions. A personal tutor, at least once in a while. More advanced literature. A genius at high school age might need to discuss the topic with university students.
The question is, what happens if the potential genius is simply not interested. This may happen quite often, and may be undocumented because of selection effect (we only learn about the potential geniuses who became actual geniuses). How many of them change their minds later? How many switch to another track and become geniuses there? (Perhaps we should support track switching.) How many just never become interested at anything important?