Trego's Mountain Ear

Back in 1916 (kind of early in the development of IQ tests) Terman published a rating of IQ test scores. His chart showed that a Stanford-Binet score of 140 or more translated to ‘near’ genius or genius. A dozen years later, Levine and Mars classified 50 to 74 as morons, 25 to 49 as imbeciles, and below 24 as idiots. The term ‘retarded’ came into the definitions to reduce the use of terms like idiot, moron and imbecile. It didn’t take long before the new term took on its own opprobrium.

That was the last of the nouns by IQ charts. Terman’s 1937 chart was more an adjective type thing – superior, average and defective. A couple of years later, Wechsler slipped in the word “normal” to replace average.

I suspect Richard Feynman, more than anyone else, demonstrates the problem of equating IQ test scores with genius. Feynman (if memory serves) scored 125 on his IQ test, yet went on to a Nobel Prize for his theoretical work in Quantum Physics. I may get a higher test score than Feynman – but he damned well outperformed me. There is more to genius than a simple test score can reflect. Thomas Edison is credited with the statement “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration.” The challenge is that anyone can come up with the perspiration part – finding the inspiration is the challenge. It’s hard to test for Edison’s one percent.

On the other hand, the tests work fairly well at weeding out the folks who lack genius. James Watson, of DNA fame, tested at 124.

Generally, IQ test reliability drops off above 145 – basically 3 standard deviations above the norm.

In 2015, this e-book appeared online: The Genius Famine . There are few books I can link to that are free – Dutton and Charlton try to answer the specifics of what is a genius as well as pointing out a shortage of them.

Their first chapter focuses on the endogenous personality – what they see as the combination of factors required for genius: “In this short book, we will explore the Genius; the Endogenous type of personality including its exceptionally high intelligence. We will argue that the highly able Endogenous personality is indeed the archetypal genius; the engine, in particular, of the original innovations that are vital to civilization itself.”

Dutton and Charlton, as I read them, regard what they term as the ‘genius famine’ as something that goes hand in hand with an increasingly pervasive bureaucracy that selects for the ‘head girls’ instead of selecting for potential geniuses. Their description of the ‘head girl’ does it’s own job of pointing out that the ‘head girl’ is easier to be around:

“The stereotypical Head Girl is an all-rounder: performs extremely well in all school subjects and has a very high ‘Grade Point Average’ as it is termed in the USA. She is excellent at sports, Captaining all the major teams. She is also pretty, popular, sociable and well-behaved.”

Their book ends with these thoughts:

1.      We need to recognize that support for genius is social self-interest – it is a risky investment, true; but when it pays off, a genius yields vastly more benefit than he costs.

2.      The benefits yielded by genius are not obtainable in any other way.

3.      Genius is born and not made. Training of non-geniuses will not yield more geniuses.

4.      Genius can be identified, and may be encouraged and flourish; or alternatively genius can be ignored, thwarted, suppressed – and rendered irrelevant.

5.      A genius is a difficult, eccentric, asocial person who – despite this – exists in order to promote the good of the group.

6.      Yet, although strong in self-motivation, self-determination and autonomy – a genius is normally a sensitive and emotionally vulnerable person. He can be dismayed, demoralized, corrupted or driven to despair – and his potential will then be diminished or destroyed.

7.      In future most genius will be ‘local’ (by our current standards), rather than international: a shaman rather than an Einstein. This is the best that can realistically be hoped-for – but a local genius is better than no genius at all.