Thanks, this discussion has improved my understanding.
And no one knows how ‘eminence’ works in part because it is intrinsically extremely debatable and hard to measure—but there is clearly a lot of variance unexplained by mere IQ, and other things are necessary, and what everyone tends to conclude (from Galton to Eysenck to Simonton on) is that personality and personality-like traits such as motivation is a big part of the missing puzzle.
I’d be curious to know about the genetics of metrics like “number of patents authored”, where it’s measuring productive activity (instead of test performance and educational attainment).
Patents are zero-inflated: most people simply have zero lifetime patents. Not informative.
And when someone does have a patent, what does it mean? Patents are a pretty lousy measure: look at software patents. Sheer fishing expeditions and patent trolling (like Intellectual Ventures, which made patents by getting people around a table to shoot the wind and have a lawyer listen and write down patents for any random idea someone idly speculated about). When you think of eminent figures like Einstein or von Neumann, how many patents do you think they had? Einstein had over 50, but few have any relationship to what he’s famous for, and would he have that many if he hadn’t literally worked in a patent office? And there are loads of people with far more than 50. Von Neumann also had some patents, but again nothing remotely like his stature*. Arguably, after a certain point, having more patents means you are less eminent and you’re some sort of hired gun grinding out paperwork. (I think of this every time I hear about how IBM, or China, incentivizes patents with big bonuses and accordingly received a record number of patents that year. Hasn’t done them much good long-term that I can tell...) And there are many areas of achievement where patents are entirely irrelevant.
If you pulled together a population-sized genealogy or registry (Scandinavia would do the trick, or one of the American genealogies to cross-reference with the USPTO), I don’t know what the results would be in terms of an ACE model, but I don’t think it would change any minds either way about emergenesis.
* The patent von Neumann is best known for is the one he didn’t get but instead torpedoed by publishing about the design of a computer, thereby helping usher in the age of the digital computer immediately instead of it being controlled by a monopolist for decades.
I think of this every time I hear about how IBM, or China, incentivizes patents with big bonuses and accordingly received a record number of patents that year. Hasn’t done them much good long-term that I can tell...
Yeah, I personally have 2 patents to my name through this kind of Goodharting. (Higher management provided the incentives, lower management encouraged me to apply even knowing it probably wasn’t economically worthwhile.)
Thanks, this discussion has improved my understanding.
I’d be curious to know about the genetics of metrics like “number of patents authored”, where it’s measuring productive activity (instead of test performance and educational attainment).
That’s an example of what I mean by debatable.
Patents are zero-inflated: most people simply have zero lifetime patents. Not informative.
And when someone does have a patent, what does it mean? Patents are a pretty lousy measure: look at software patents. Sheer fishing expeditions and patent trolling (like Intellectual Ventures, which made patents by getting people around a table to shoot the wind and have a lawyer listen and write down patents for any random idea someone idly speculated about). When you think of eminent figures like Einstein or von Neumann, how many patents do you think they had? Einstein had over 50, but few have any relationship to what he’s famous for, and would he have that many if he hadn’t literally worked in a patent office? And there are loads of people with far more than 50. Von Neumann also had some patents, but again nothing remotely like his stature*. Arguably, after a certain point, having more patents means you are less eminent and you’re some sort of hired gun grinding out paperwork. (I think of this every time I hear about how IBM, or China, incentivizes patents with big bonuses and accordingly received a record number of patents that year. Hasn’t done them much good long-term that I can tell...) And there are many areas of achievement where patents are entirely irrelevant.
If you pulled together a population-sized genealogy or registry (Scandinavia would do the trick, or one of the American genealogies to cross-reference with the USPTO), I don’t know what the results would be in terms of an ACE model, but I don’t think it would change any minds either way about emergenesis.
* The patent von Neumann is best known for is the one he didn’t get but instead torpedoed by publishing about the design of a computer, thereby helping usher in the age of the digital computer immediately instead of it being controlled by a monopolist for decades.
Yeah, I personally have 2 patents to my name through this kind of Goodharting. (Higher management provided the incentives, lower management encouraged me to apply even knowing it probably wasn’t economically worthwhile.)