= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
whowhowho comments on Einstein's Superpowers - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (92)
What's rarely appreciated is that Einstein also lucked out, besides being 1 in 10^? genius. A lot of things went right for him early on. On the other hand, a lot of things went wrong for him later on, and so he was left out of the mainstream scientific progress, save for his incisive QM critique.
Nearly there: you can't predict backward from success to raw (non domain specific) ability, for just the same reason you can't predict forward from high IQ to success in arbitrary field.
But you can predict forward from high IQ to success in an arbitrary field, at least to some degree. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_outcomes.
They're not the same, but they do correlate (which is why it's not pointless to define g in the first place); now, due to regression to the mean, someone better at theoretical physics than 99.999999% of the population (and no, I don't think that's too many 9s) is likely not also better at general intelligence than 99.999999% of the population -- but I very strongly doubt that the correct number of 9s is less than half that many. (Anyway, I'm not sure it'd make sense to define g precisely enough to tell whether someone's 1 in 10^6 or 1 in 10^9.)