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Sent Before Their Time: Genius, Charisma, and Being Born Prematurely
Edward Dutton
Australia: Manticore Press, 2022
328 pages, $24.95 softbound
Ed Dutton’s latest book marks a return to the theme of genius, which he previously explored in The Genius Famine (with Bruce Charleton, 2016) and At Our Wit’s End (with Michael Woodley of Menie, 2018). There is no universally recognized definition of genius. The word always implies high intelligence, and may imply nothing more, as when a certain IQ score—there is no agreement exactly which—is said to constitute “genius level.” But Dutton is interested in men who have “made a disproportionately large impact on human history,” often through revolutionary contributions to the disciplines in which they work: Newton, Mozart, Michelangelo, Archimedes, Darwin, and so forth. Others have been great statesmen or religious leaders. All have been extremely intelligent, but intelligence by itself is insufficient for genius-level accomplishment: many who possess the necessary brain power never use it to achieve great things.
Intelligence is a highly polygenetic trait, so outlier high IQ requires the inheritance of an improbable number of alleles all pulling in the same beneficial direction. But the case is otherwise with some of the other traits associated with outstanding achievement. Geniuses, as Dutton explains, are marked by a certain personality profile.
They are low in ‘rule-following,’ permitting them to ‘think outside the box’ and so to generate original ideas, and they are low in altruism and empathy, meaning that they don’t care about the probability that their ideas will offend vested interests. They are obsessed with truth, and they wouldn’t anticipate that their ideas would offend even if they did care. In many cases, they are also high in anxiety, meaning that they are constantly thinking and have a desperate desire to make sense of their world.
Low empathy and high anxiety are not, prima facie, especially desirable traits, so as prerequisites for genius, they may appear counter-intuitive.
An analogy may be helpful. A person ignorant of viticulture would probably assume that the best wine would be produced by the best soils. In fact, when vines are planted in especially rich soil, the result is an enormous profusion of leaves and very few grapes. High-quality wine grapes are grown in relatively weak—but not too weak—soil: it is precisely the vine’s struggle against a suboptimal environment which brings out the best in grapes. Genius seems to involve a similar dynamic. (This, incidentally, is what makes eugenic intervention such a delicate matter: nature may be acting more wisely than any possible human agent by allowing certain normally sub-optimal traits to survive within a population.)
Few things would appear more sub-optimal for human flourishing than premature birth. Humans have evolved to spend nine months in the womb, and being born significantly (= more than three weeks) earlier is traumatic and stressful. Dutton’s list of risks associated with prematurity is sobering: “blindness, vision problems, underdeveloped lungs resulting in frequent infection, deafness, poor muscle tone, mobility problems, difficulties with fine motor skills, developmental delay, heart problems, high blood pressure, infertility, birth defects, depression, ADHD, autism, psychopathic personality, low self-esteem, never having a relationship nor having children, low IQ (especially low spatial and Mathematical IQ),” and much more besides. The more premature the birth, the greater the odds of problems developing.
And yet children born prematurely, or with exceptionally low birth weight, are statistically overrepresented among outstanding high-achievers. Dutton’s examples include “Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Goethe, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, [and] John Keats.”
This is certainly not because preterm birth contributes to high intelligence; as mentioned above, the two correlate negatively. “If you are born prematurely or small,” Dutton explains, “the brain is unlikely to develop properly. . . . [I]t leads to a form of mild mental handicap.” Yet when such a handicap happens to combine with exceptionally high genetic intelligence, a kind of synergy comes into play that makes for outstanding achievement. This is because, as Dutton explains, the brain has an extraordinary ability to rewire itself: “if it loses an area, it can be expected to strengthen the other areas.” This leads the prematurely born (colloquially known as “preemies”) to think in unusual ways, meaning that they are prone to look for solutions where others might not. As Dutton puts it, geniuses “are almost childlike in the degree to which they are imaginative, meaning they ask questions few others would ask and make connections that few others would make.”
A recent neuro-imaging study offers some clues to how this works:
A subject had to press a button as quickly as they could each time a new letter came onto a screen, unless it was the letter ‘x.’ Controls used ‘proactive’ brain activation, meaning you are working on a task and you are mentally prepared for new, unexpected, things to happen. Preemies used ‘reactive’ brain activation (Olsen et al., 2018). According to Norwegian neuroscientist Alexander Olsen, they were unprepared for change and ‘their brains reacted as if they were encountering something new each time. … It suggests their brains are hyper-vigilant due to the suboptimal organization of the central nervous system.’
Geniuses often have extremely narrow intelligence: while they achieve outstanding things in specialized fields, they may also be highly impractical, failing at tasks that do not require exceptional intelligence and that ordinary people master easily. A famous example is that Albert Einstein never learned to drive a car.
Extreme examples of this sort of lopsided intellectual development are found in “idiot savants”—now more politely and properly known as “autistic savants.” Such persons may be unable to tie their own shoelaces, and yet play the piano masterfully or display outstanding mathematical ability. Autistic savants are overwhelmingly extreme pre-termers. So it should not be surprising that genius, which represents a milder form of the same phenomenon, is often associated with preterm birth.
Geniuses are also often erratic in their ability to pay attention. Despite their intelligence, most do not do that well in school because they easily become bored. Sir Isaac Newton, e.g., was never a good student and nearly failed his degree at Cambridge. Young geniuses tend to be the sort of boys who today get diagnosed with ADHD—which, interestingly, is also statistically associated with preterm birth. And yet this comes not of any intrinsic inability to concentrate, but of a disinclination to concentrate on anything they find less than fascinating. When they do come across such a thing, typically involving some unsolved problem, they are capable of working on it compulsively to the exclusion of all else.
Asked the secret of his discoveries, Newton said: “I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.” In other words, he had an ability to focus on a problem obsessively, not letting up until he had fully solved it. There are anecdotes concerning him getting distracted by a problem while walking up or down a staircase and remaining standing there for hours on end. Oblivious to all around him, he sometimes even forgot to eat while in such a state.
But it may take a long time for a genius to find his true calling. Many have been late-bloomers, or made their discoveries in a field other than that in which they were formally trained. In contemporary parlance, they might be said to have difficulty “finding themselves”—though of course it is not really “themselves” they are looking for, but a suitable problem to which they can devote their utmost efforts.
New ideas always offend vested interests, so they are more likely to be formulated and spread by persons with autism spectrum disorders, which make it difficult for them to empathize with others. They may fail to anticipate the offence their ideas will cause or, if they do anticipate it, not care about this. As an example of the first tendency, Dutton cites the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. His view of society as based on human contract without reference to the divine will ran counter to the Christian thinking of the seventeenth century. Yet when the English parliament denounced his Leviathan as a book “tend[ing] to atheism, blasphemy and profaneness,” Hobbes himself was apparently among the few taken by surprise. He hastily destroyed many of his own unpublished manuscripts for fear they might be compromising. Other original thinkers, such as the late J. Philippe Rushton (on whom Dutton has written a monograph), may know full well that their ideas will cause offense, but actually derive enjoyment from the discomfiture of more timid and less original colleagues.
Finally, genius is associated with anxiety, in particular a desperate desire to make sense of the world in which they live. This may go directly back to the experience of the fetus finding itself in an unaccustomed environment for which it is unprepared. It is certainly not due to high intelligence, which—as I was somewhat disappointed to learn—actually correlates with intellectual conformity. As Dutton explains:
People who are more intelligent are better at noticing what the dominant worldview is, better at realizing the social benefits of conforming to that dominant world view, and better at forcing themselves to believe it and coming up with superficially convincing arguments for so-doing. This, of course, better permits them to attain social status.
An obsessive devotion to truth above all else is thus no consequence of mere intelligence, but it does appear characteristic of the high-anxiety genius personality profile.
Psychologists have not reached agreement on the precise number and character of factors which make up human personality, but a five-factor model is currently popular. J. Philippe Rushton pointed out, however, that all five factors on which this model is based correlate positively to some degree. This led him to speak of a General Factor of Personality (GFP) analogous to ‘g,’ the general factor of intelligence. The GFP amounts to a measure of how pro-social a person is. Those high in GFP, writes Dutton, have
the kind of personality type and behaviors that underpin many socially desirable traits, the degree to which someone approximates to the type of person that makes for friendliness, helpfulness, being a ‘good neighbor;’ for peaceful, orderly, cooperative, hard-working, placid citizens. A person who is high in GFP is the kind of person who ‘gets on in life.’ [Such traits] evolved as an adaptation to complex and stable societies so that people would ‘get along together.’ So a person with high GFP would be sociably extroverted, be empathetic and be concerned with the feelings of others, conscientious and self-disciplined in pursuit of socially-approved goals.
It should be clear by now that the genius is unlikely to have a personality of this sort, desirable as it may be in other respects. Instead, the genius is
self-sufficient and indifferent to the opinions of others or to normal social aims. Such a person is wrapped up in his own personal goals and making judgments using his own internal, subjective evaluation systems. He will work very hard and for long periods on his own projects but will not willingly go along with other people’s plans and schemes.
In part, such qualities represent survivals from a fast-life strategy better adapted to unpredictable environments.
There are many specialized forms of activity in which one may accomplish at genius level, and some involve variations on the basic genius profile we have just outlined. An artistic genius is more likely to score high on the ‘divergent thought’ aspect of Openness-Intellect, one dimension of the five-factor personality model, and are also higher in Neuroticism, than scientific or philosophical geniuses. As Dutton writes, “the Neurotic is constantly thinking about aspects of life, meaning that they are continually generating thoughts, making them creative as an indirect consequence of their anxiety.” Depression is also associated with artistic genius. While about 20% of people in Western countries experience depression at some point in their lives, one study of high accomplishment found figures of 41% for eminent artists and 72% for eminent writers. In what may seem a paradox, depression can even contribute to the ability of certain extraordinary men whom Dutton calls political and religious geniuses to influence others:
Depression is associated with profound religious experiences, which are adaptive because they force the person out of their depression and provide them with a sense of deep existential meaning (Newberg et al., 2002). With this certainty and positivity, they can then inspire others, as do charismatic figures. It has also been found that charismatic leaders tend to be high in psychopathic traits (Post, 1994) includ[ing] superficial charm, grandiosity (and thus confidence), and the ability to manipulate others. It is traits such as these that are the essence of ‘charisma’ (Sargent, 1957).]
An example of a religious genius is Charles Wesley, founder of Methodism. Dutton’s account is worth quoting at length:
It is 1726, in a room at Christ Church College, Oxford. It is evening, just after college dinner. A small group of students are singing, but this is no ordinary hymn practice. Their eyes are closed. They seem to be in a trance, with looks of intense peace on their faces. They live according to what they call ‘the Method.’ They meet after dinner every day to discuss how they have used that day to witness for Christ, to read the Bible together, and to pray. Some people call them Methodists. They call themselves ‘the Holy Club’ (Pearson, 2011, p.193).
The Holy Club was recently founded by the rather charismatic student who seems to be leading the singing, Charles Wesley (1707–1788), the son of a Lincolnshire vicar. Wesley would go on to lead one of the largest religious revivals in the history of English Christianity: Methodism. He also wrote thousands of hymns, articulating and inspiring the religious sentiments of Englishmen who remained in the Church of England and did not join his breakaway movement. In inspiring people to be more religious, Wesley inspired them to follow the dictates of traditional religiousness: go forth and multiply, cooperate with your neighbor, make sacrifices to repel the invader, who, unlike us, does not have God on his side; believe that your life has eternal significance and that you, and your people, are uniquely chosen by the Lord. As we will now see, in doing so, Wesley indirectly helped his own people — the British — to triumph in the battle of ‘group selection’ against other peoples. Wesley was born two months prematurely (Cairns, 2015, p.81). When he was born, he seemed ‘more dead than alive.’ Charles didn’t even cry until several weeks after his birth (Cavendish, December 2007). But he pulled through. If he hadn’t, then we wouldn’t be able to sing ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!’ at Christmas.
So geniuses, while always unusual personalities in certain respects, need not resemble the deeply uncharismatic recluse Isaac Newton. Some are, in Dutton’s words, “the kind of people whom you’d follow to the ends of the earth, who can inspire you to super-human feats.”
Geniuses often fail to marry or reproduce, but they still increase the inclusive fitness of their peoples. It is possible, therefore, that they are the product of an unconscious group selection strategy, as has been argued by Michael Woodley and A. J. Figueredo:
Their inventions do not benefit themselves or even their families. There are examples of geniuses who treat their families appallingly, receive little credit for their invention, and end-up living in penury. Their innovations benefit the group of which the genius is a member. The inventions which kicked-off the Industrial Revolution, for example, allowed the British population to soar in size and wealth and to expand around much of the globe. Clearly, then, a successful society needs to maintain an optimum but relatively low number of geniuses. It cannot be too many, because a society full of uncooperative, impractical dreamers will be dominated by a more internally cooperative and practical one. And it cannot be too few, or the society will be dominated by one which has the appropriate number of geniuses to allow the necessary level of innovation.
With dysgenic selection having taken hold in the West since the late Nineteenth Century, we are seeing a decline in the number of geniuses; this is not sufficiently offset by a much higher survival rate for premature children. With the collapse of group selection, Dutton also predicts the rise of ‘evil geniuses,’ brilliantly talented men whose achievements harm rather than enhance the evolutionary fitness of their group, for example, by promoting extreme individualism, a preference for outgroups over one’s own group, feminism, anti-natalism, and other harmful ideologies. Clearly many such people exist in our society, but few of them merit the title of genius. Dutton considers Winston Churchill and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (both born prematurely) as two possible cases, but decides in both cases that the evidence is inconclusive.
Dutton has a personal interest in prematurity, having been born three months early himself, and he includes a chapter on his own experiences growing up preterm. As he wryly notes, this autobiographical chapter puts him in the forefront of academic fashion, as many young scholars are now making their reputations with accounts of the intersectional oppression they have personally experienced.
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look at the book cover.
look at it as a racial deal.
Being different, accepting own difference, willing to be different, opening door to creativity.
Most genius associated with some kind of psychological difference. Yet, critics lack of originality or creativity, who are good at spotting difference from norm angle. According to Freud.
Difficult to create, easy to criticize. Most critics are losers
There are lots of examples (in History) of geniuses who didn’t ever marry and/or died without offspring… LGBT activists make the case these people were ‘closeted homosexuals’ – Sure, it is possible! But I think it’s more likely instead that these geniuses were simply autists.
‘An analogy may be helpful. A person ignorant of viticulture would probably assume that the best wine would be produced by the best soils. In fact, when vines are planted in especially rich soil, the result is an enormous profusion of leaves and very few grapes. High-quality wine grapes are grown in relatively weak—but not too weak—soil: it is precisely the vine’s struggle against a suboptimal environment which brings out the best in grapes. Genius seems to involve a similar dynamic. (This, incidentally, is what makes eugenic intervention such a delicate matter: nature may be acting more wisely than any possible human agent by allowing certain normally sub-optimal traits to survive within a population.)
Few things would appear more sub-optimal for human flourishing than premature birth.’
I did not know this thank you.
The only problem with Eugenics I see is exactly this: we humans know too little – ‘playing God’ could very well backfire!
I have studied for more than half a century the wonderful Western Civilization.
You probably did not know this, but I, after long study of our wonderful civilization, and of the lesser civilizations in our poor old world, know it: most women who have children with men who are not their husbands just hope for the best ….. but then there is that top one percent of women, the ones who are ready with the lie soon after the birthing —– “oh my dear Husband how sad”, such women might say, “our baby is premature! Yes I know I did not have sex with you nine months ago, only six months ago …. our poor baby! ….. born 3 months early!!!!” …. these women, in the top one percent, are the women who KNOW they can outwit their husbands, and lie about a premature birth when 9 months earlier they were ‘cavorting’, as they used to say in poor old long-gone London, with a man who was not their husband, and only 3 months later had progenerative sex with the sad sack of a loser who later believed them when they said their beloved little bundle of joy, the stupor mundi, must have been premature, born from the later, lesser, copulation.
Having a mother in the top one percent is the best start you can get in life if you want to be in the same top one percent, but it does not help you to understand other people, a skill which is orthogonal to the skills that the women who lied about who they were having sex with 9 months, as opposed to 6 months ago, were so happy to exploit. Hence, poor Newton was brilliant at figuring numerical things out but never understood why no woman – not a single one of whom was ever a number fanatic like poor Isaac – ever trusted him enough to make him someone who could, with normal human confidence, fall in love with her, and vice versa. And so on and so on for all the little ‘premature’ geniuses cited by Edward D. and Roger D.
My friends, pray to God that if you started in life with a genetic advantage like the genetic advantage of the children of those women who knew how to lie so well ….. pray to GOD to take away that advantage, start over …. start over and be an untalented athlete, a struggling blue-collar worker, an unread poet, a tenured mediocrity, anything, but don’t take advantage of the fact that you were born with the genes of a heartless liar. BETTER TO BE A DECENT HUMAN BEING WHO IS FAITHFUL TO THOSE WHOM ONE LOVES THAN TO BE THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED CHILD OF A MAN WHO IS TOO STUPID TO REALIZE YOU WERE NOT PREMATURE AND A WOMAN WHO LIED ABOUT IT!!!!
Thanks for reading… every once in a while I like to explain things. If you think I do not know what I am talking about, well that just amuses me, and makes me feel a little sorry for you — but GOD BLESS YOU ANYWAY, GOD LOVES THE SIMPLE-MINDED. I know what I am talking about, for the record.
I suspect we genius preemies are simply impatient, eager to join the Earthly fray.
Very interesting post–that sounds just like my parents–brilliant mom–very average intelligence dad–she could easily have fooled him–and of course the rest of the family.
In movies or TV there is always the scene where someone learns of their dubious parental history and get all upset–drama, drama, drama.
I don’t get it. That stuff is ancient history–and life goes on….
western, secular, modern thinking is based on false assumptions, lies, deceit, contempt, wishful thinking, bizarre ideas, unbelief and wishy-washy theories. they take the gifts of God and ascribe them to some random, blind, stupid chance. thus, they end up perverting and defiling everything that is natural and sacred. a rebellious, stiff-necked, wicked and adulterous generation. woe unto Babylon!
the Lord gives gifts of wisdom to the children of Man, but often they deny Him Who is Providence or end up turning the gifts towards evil purposes.
Exodus 35
The Artisans Called by God
30 And Moses said to the children of Israel, “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; 31 and He has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, in knowledge and all manner of workmanship, 32 to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze, 33 in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of artistic workmanship.
34 “And He has put in his heart the ability to teach, in him and Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. 35 He has filled them with skill to do all manner of work of the engraver and the designer and the tapestry maker, in blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine linen, and of the weaver—those who do every work and those who design artistic works.
The review did not mention that low birth weight is a proxy for prematurity. It is a stretch to believe that a baby of healthy weight is one month premature. More than one month is simply impossible.
Jordan Peterson mentioned some people are calling for a sixth factor to be added to the Five-Factor personality model – morality.
I was thinking about this. You could be a psychopath and be open to experience, conscientious, extroverted or introverted (wouldn’t matter), low in agreeableness, and high in neuroticism and become an “evil” genius. Using “morality” as the sixth factor would capture this evilness.
“But it may take a long time for a genius to find his true calling.”
Yes, I keep waiting (ha!). Seriously, is there any other reason why a genius could be held back from “finding” his true calling? For instance, if it were never safe to do so, could this hold him back?
I adore Messi and have watched his videos over and over and over. He wasn’t a preemie, but he is most definitely a creative “genius”. You can see it in his plays, his understanding of angles, his precise passing. He outsmarts everybody else on the pitch, and he often puts the ball inches from the goalie’s reach or lobs it over the goalie’s head. He is truly remarkable, like viewing a work of art.
Some people have said he is slightly autistic. It appears that way; you’d have to be.
To me, seems like a BAD idea, at first glance. There are different types of ‘morality’ – isn’t the fact that one adheres to Consequentialism rather than Deontology a reflection of their personality‽
https://www.yourmorals.org/
Children whose fathers are unable to understand what you said about birth weight would seem to be genetically disadvantaged by their fathers’ apparently limited reasoning abilities but on the other hand …. verb. sap. sufficit …. (in other words, the clueless ‘fathers’ are not contributing any genetic material to the little critters they look upon as, each and every one, a “stupor mundi”)
No you wouldn’t (have to be autistic to excel at a given sport). Best writer ever was Shakespeare, who was the absolute opposite of autistic. Ditto for the greatest of painters, Raphael and Velasquez. Mozart is my favorite composer and he was loved by the women of his day, despite being short —- so also, probably not autistic at all. That being said, Newton (physics) and von Neumann (advanced maths) were not the sort of guys who come across as not-on-the-spectrum. By the way, if you are reading this and think you are on the spectrum, and you want not to miss out on what autistic people miss out on, I wish you the best of luck. I advise the Christian religion, because it focuses so much on appreciating your fellow human beings and charity towards them, or, if you are not religious, devotion to honest good-hearted friendship (the way you would want to devote yourself to any other topic, whether or not an intellectual topic), and charity and good-hearted appreciation of your fellow humans, at least the ones who do not bore you too much. Some day you will appreciate the boring ones, too, one hopes ……
I have argued this point before with people, but the gay agenda propaganda is so strong that many cannot conceive that this could be the case. Homosexuals, especially these days, love to prey upon these types of males.
This book was published only a few weeks ago, and naturally there aren’t many reviews. Amazon allowed a “peek” inside, and I wasn’t impressed with what I saw. But it also offered a look at Mr. Dutton’s other books, and that’s when I realized I’d seen this fellow before.
https://www.unz.com/article/murrayism-as-in-charles-murray-has-failed-now-what/#comment-4979559
A look at the rational wiki and other sources verified that while this fellow “might” do well on an IQ test, but when it comes to rational thought he ain’t all there.
The Cover show Churchill among “Genus”. Sadly, Churchill was never a Genus. He was a dirty racist Anglo Fascist and there is no shred of Genus in his DNA. In fact, he got the dirtiest DNA of all human beings. He was a son of a whore.
The most interesting thing about Edward Dutton is not his works(in fact that’s the most boring ones), but his extreme obsession with geniuses. Anyone who have read his books cannot help but immediately notice that he has very superficial, if any, understanding on so-called “STEM” fields. Hence his “analysis” on geniuses never gives any kind of insight about the concept of “genius” itself. All it provides is yet another dopamine-pumping drugs for impotent western alt-rights.
All of his arguments about “geniuses” are always just another ideology-driven ones, which always can be summarized as “we whites genius. we whites superior. we whites god’s chosen people. bug people inferior slaves. moslems inferior savages. africans inferior apes. we whites failing because we are too superior geniuses to other subhumans like bugs or moslems, not because we are retarded.” The last part is the most interesting point, because it gives a glimpse on what’s going on in Dutton’s mind. For Dutton, the most important thing is not actually saving the Western civilization, nor giving any practical and/or enlightening insight about human genius. It’s all about “proving European’s innate superiority over other subhuman apes like asian bugs or moslem savages”, most importantly through “geniuses” and “individualism”. So white people’s ongoing failures must be yet another proof for their “innate superiority”, be it genius or individualism or whatnot, NOT for any “inferiority”. For Dutton, history has started right 300 years ago, and before then mankind never existed. So who can ever deny the undeniable, absolute European genius-superiority above all else subhumans? After all, Europeans are the ones who have dominated the entire history of mankind since humans first appeared on earth 300 years ago! Oh, and nevermind the jews.
That being said, I highly endorse all of Dutton’s work. It continuously gives good-feeling drugs to western alt-rights so that they can masturbate on their superior-god geniuses, while do nothing in reality. Meanwhile for the rest of the world, including and especially “inferior midwit asian bug people and savage moslem subhumans” who has been destroyed their countries and cultures by western-genius-imposed feminism, war, banking etc, the weaker West means the weaker jewish power over the world, so it’s all good for all. Thanks, Dutton!
“They are obsessed with truth, and they wouldn’t anticipate that their ideas would offend even if they did care. In many cases, they are also high in anxiety, meaning that they are constantly thinking and have a desperate desire to make sense of their world.”
This cracks me. It reads like a horoscope. 😂 Gotta cover everyone and Bob’s your Uncle who deliberated the other day about “truth”, felt “anxiety” and tried to “make sense of their world”.
So I take it, the next book will be about late caesarian birth geniuses who refused to be born prematurely because they were geniuses.
I wonder what would result if there was a program where expectant baby mommas from a certain race had their labour brought on early. Sure, some babies might die, but could it lead to less street urchins and more intelligent citizens gaining work and fitting in with society, going forwards on their merits and not race related privileges? Could they rise to the occasion?
It’s seems like there are genius societies and genius individuals. Countries like Singapore, Sweden etc might have advanced societies because their inhabitants are high GFP, but more unstable societies would produce more geniuses. Or perhaps a country with reasonably high GFP people is needed for geniuses to flourish.
To A Mathematician
He discovered the age of the sun and he knows
Just why the wrong or the right wind blows.
He has looked at each nook of the ocean’s floor
But he doesn’t see that his wife is a whore. – Jan Kochanowski (16th century)
John Bardeen simply refutes these speculations.
He was, personally – ordinary, healthy & empathetic man.
Dutton exclusively specializes in Hypothesis Formulation due to his exclusively high verbal intelligence. However, he relies on actual scientists to test his hypothesis, such as Mr. Kirkegaard and Dr. Woodley of Menie. As I understand it, Dutton fails to grasp much of the factual nature of humans. He seems to me to keep on slipping into Freudian Psychoanalytic interpretations of human behavior, instead of biological ones. In fact, Dr. Woodley of Menie called him out on this very fact, live on the Jolly Heretic; Woodley accused him of thinking too much like a sociologist as opposed to a biologist. To me, it seems like Dutton comprises the very traits he accused Dr. Rushton of – being a Fast-Life History Strategist. Dutton seems to me to not really be interested in the mathematically quantified verification of his prolific hypothesis formulations, but rather just in receiving donations and creating numerous “dime-a-dozen” books filled with endless hypothesis in the hopes of achieving high sales. Again, live on the Jolly Heretic, Dr. Woodley of Menie called Dutton out in being too interested in achieving public fame, instead of mathematically verified truths. I’ve sent Dutton many long emails pointing out what I perceive as his scientific fallacies, hoping to forgive him if he at least attempts to address these issues; however, he has disregarded all of my emails. In the interest of complete honesty and my underlying sentiment to be universally altruistic, I must disclose the fact that I only possess average General Intelligence, and as such, everything I have just stated could be false. Anyway, here are some of the comments I have left on Dutton’s channel regarding his behavior:
My understanding is that Dutton flatters himself by referring to himself as “autistic” and “scientific.” I instead find him to be poetic, a manifestation of one with an asymmetrically high verbal intelligence that is not balanced with sufficient quantities of quantitative and visuo-spatial ones.
Dutton constantly contradicts himself. One day he will say that eugenics is not desirable because for a race to be optimally Group Selected, only a small percent must have high intelligence and be responsible for leading the nation, while the rest need to have average and below average intelligence so they can do jobs that require more muscle than brains. But then the next day, Dutton will say that the European “elites” are in fact not responsible for either leading the nation towards adaptive or maladaptive paths, and such beliefs are just “conspiracy theories.” Dutton has mentioned his support for Dr. Woodley’s Social Epistasis Amplification Model where the argument is made that when the elites of a Group-Selected race undergo mutations, it can result in the brains of the elites being affected to where they suggest maladaptive behaviors for their race, resulting in epigenetic changes in behavior of the masses where they now engage in such maladaptive behaviors. But then once again, Dutton will the next day say that such thinking that elites have influence on the masses in just a “conspiracy theory.” Again, such non-scientific thinking would be predicted by one who possesses asymmetrically very high verbal intelligence and insufficient quantitative and visuospatial ones.
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Dutton constantly complains that his guests speak too slowly, and also was extremely agitated about the fact that Dr. Woodley of Menie used to speak much slower than him on the show. I posted the following regarding Dutton’s complaints:
One can recite poetry quite rapidly; however, quantitative and visuo-spatial reasoning takes more time, which is why Dr. Woodley of Menie had to slow down when answering questions. This is why on a computer, graphics processing requires a lot more resources than word-processing applications. One actually needs a separate GPU for descent graphics processing, while word-processing can be sufficiently handled just by the CPU.
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Perhaps because of my intellectual deficiencies I have the views that I do, but I find most of the host’s guests to be “strange.” They seem to either be “mid-wits” and/or just engaging in fraud. I just don’t see them offering any new data that is of moderate or higher value, let alone ground-breaking data that gives us significantly new understanding of reality that we did not have before. Even Emil Kirkegaard rarely offers any new data and rather seems to just replicate studies that have already been carried out. Perhaps this is the effect of dysgenics/mutational load where genius level scientists are extremely rare. I myself have contributed nothing, except for pointing out the shortcomings of others. In fact, the only actual individual who currently seems to offer major “big-picture” level new understandings of the world is Dr. Woodley of Menie – reformulating the breeders equation to encorporate the variable of generation quantity, discovering the part of the brain responsible for the Flynn Effect, discovering the correlation between life-history strategy and the level of correlatedness between the veral, quantitative, and visuo-spatial intelligences, and discovering the cumulative effects of mutations of things like religiosity. Dr. Woodley seems to me to be on the level of MacDonald’s discovery of Ashkenazi Group-Selected evolution and eugenic practices, Lynn’s discovery of dysgenic trends, and Jensen’s and Spearman’s mathematical forumulation of general intelligence. I am curious to know what counts as “macro-innovations” in the last ten years. It has been discovered that contemporary innovation is at the rate of 25% of that in 1860 or so. What are these macro-innovations? I would like to see a list of the macro-innovations for the last ten years. I tried to search the internet but could not find anything. It’s hard for me to find highly conspicuous macro-innavations such as past macro-innovations such as the light bulb, combustion engine, steam engine, radio, television, battery, electricity, the transistor, typewriter, propeller airplane, microwave oven, etc.
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Once again the host is confused and contradicts himself. First, Dr. Woodley of Menie writes a paper in which he concludes that in contemporary times, European Psychopaths successfully use contraception, and it’s the relatively K-Selected people who successfully have children because they emotionally desire it. Thus, contemporary Europeans are becoming K-Selected. However, the host then on a previous show says that the latest evidence shows that overall, Europeans are actually becoming R-Selected and that Dr. Woodley is incorrect. The host cites evidence such as increasing breast size and decreasing age of first menstruation. However, now on this show, the host disregards his previous claim and says we are actually becoming more K-Selected, as Woodley theorized.
Then, the host says that low ‘g’ is an R-Selected trait, when Dr. Woodley has theorized that within races, ‘g’ has no correlation to life history strategy; it’s only at the group level that ethnic median ‘g’ is positively correlated to slower life history strategies.
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Finally, Dr. Roger Devlin has chosen to purchase Dutton’s book, read it, and review it here. However, I have found most of Dutton’s hypothesis to not be logical, therefore, I am not willing to read any of his books, except for those he writes with Dr. Woodley of Menie, where Woodley does all the science, and Dutton just puts his name on it.
Are you trying to spell “genius” and failing miserably? Because “genus” is an entirely different word with an entirely different meaning. Sort of makes your comment a gigantic fail.
–“Countries like Singapore, Sweden etc might have advanced societies because …–”
…you think Sweden is an advanced society ? I don’t understand because it is destroying itself as an independent, peaceful and harmonius Swedish country, like most Western countries now do.
it sacrifices itself to the now agenda.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an evil genius?
More of a moderate natural disaster. After the hurricane there come the looters; since Rousseau, we have been bothered by stone age idolaters.
Correction: it sacrifices itself to the nwo-agenda.
and as addition to the comment above:
As for Dutton’s book, it should go without saying that creative talent does not usually – but still often – reside in the mind of the average person but requires a dose of the sociopathy and even disruptive psychopathy he warns us against and which seems to be strengthening its grip in the form of the nwo agenda.
Whether it does any good or harm to the mankind depends first and foremost on the biological make-up of the person possessing it, in particular on the amount of aggressive or destructive energy.
“Seriously, is there any other reason why a genius could be held back from “finding” his true calling?”
Many super high IQ types are really more like idiot-savants, as they can get terminally lost in the incredible convolutions of their own fantastically labyrinthine complexity of thought and mental processes.
(While others simply figure out what is going on all around them, and decide they no longer give a shit….. )
One face on the cover nearly made me throw up: Churchill.
If being a war-mongering, boot-licking toady to Jewish Supremacism is ‘genius’, there are an awful lot of ‘geniuses’ in the governments of the USA, UK and the EU currently……..
“Others have been great statesmen or religious leaders.”
More like shysters!
“…I suspect we genius preemies ”
Of course, a godless sodomite would PRESUME that ‘he’ is somehow ‘unique, special’ and ‘different’ in the best manner, when all he is is, ‘poor, wretched, naked, and blind.’
This article presumes so much that it first must prove, that ANY conclusion begs the question.
1) Evolution is a fallacy. We are not ‘programmed’ for ANYTHING, unless we are PREDESTINED.
And if God has a say in it AT ALL, then it is HE who determines the geniuses, the masters of their disciplines, and often, via the eugenics of sane, stable heteronormative families…. like the Bachs, who gave us Johann Sebastian.
2) Mentioning Einstein (a Jew) and Newton (an alchemist and heretic) are merely two examples of the godless wanting to ‘prove’ that they are somehow not ‘beholden’ to the Almighty. Einstein stole all his best research, and Newton was most likely demon-possessed (from reading a fair amount about him).
Now, as a preemie myself, I don’t hold much stock- however, our son (also a preemie) is by far and away one of the most intelligent people in his discipline I have met (as a university professor for over 30 years). But idiot savants (and disobedient sons) are NOT the brick and mortar of a successful civilization. Neither are unrepentant sodomites…. Therefore, articles such as this refuse to ask the next necessary question.
Do such DESERVE to be given either place, prominence, or position? I would say, not at all. Privilege and accolades are EARNED, due to hard work, submission to one’s betters, and just being submissive until Mastery is gained. Because we have sixty years or more of ‘entitlement’ due to perversion, lesser race status, some false ideology of ‘being held down’ showing us the UTTER USELESSNESS OF SUCH, especially when such people used to be abandoned at birth, never left the sub-Saharan Savannah, or were damned as their whoring mothers were damned, for their societal sins.
In other words, God’s righteous judgment on those not His Elect.
God is not mocked- neither are those who uphold the Law of God, and wait for the TRUE Genius to arise ORGANICALLY from within a godly society. Q.E. D.
Pathologically advanced.
Like the immortal Eternals in the film Zardoz.
Premature babies are pretty easy to identify by weight, development, etc. People weren’t idiots all through history about everyday facts. Babies were born at home, came frequently, and everybody knew what they looked like. There’s a paragraph in Wuthering Heights about a baby supposedly premature. The nursemaid gives her opinion about (can’t quote exactly) but says to the effect that a 7 months baby was puny and wrinkled and barely alive. As for a 6 months premie–before the mid-20th c. they hardly ever survived.
This is certainly an interesting article, but an NGO, the National Birth Defect Registry, that collects information and lobbies for children with birth defects carries following info
“Ten percent of all babies in the United States are born prematurely. African American babies are 2-3 times more likely to be born prematurely. Young women or women over the age of 35 are more likely to have premature births.”
If these figures are accurate we would expect, according to argument in the article above, to be surrounded by genius on all sides.
Shakespeare probably didn’t write the plays. Almost certainly written mostly by someone else who needed to protect himself in those tumultuous days. A couple different names have been identified (my nephew is an expert on the subject and has his opinion.) Shakespeare probably collaborate though as some features of the plays, like Hamlet’s name, recall some of Shakespeare’s life (a son who died young, named Hamnet.)
They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
Interesting observations, thanks.
I definitely agree with your conclusion that God loves the simple-minded; he makes so many of them!
The Homosexual and Transgender Mafia (which is really weaponized by the Jewish Mafia) is desperate to get any possible support they can. They revise history and distort people and events so that everyone is persuaded that their sexual perversions and gender dysphoria is something we should all ‘celebrate’ and accept as ‘normal.’
Reasonably persuasive, but has the author managed to discount another possibility? I have never met a genius. In some highly intelligent people I’ve encountered, however, I’ve seen anti-social personality traits that I suspect have been amplified by the indulgence with which others have treated them because of their intelligence.
In other words, may there not be a “spoiled brat” syndrome among some who flourish thus?
Different line: how about listing some undisputed geniuses who did not flounce around like ADHD sufferers? Shakespeare? Adam Smith, David Hume, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, James Watt, …? And those are just some British examples from before the 20th century. How about the Continent? Please start with Rembrandt, J S Bach, and, if you think we know enough about him, Archimedes.
A stray thought – how about the great fighting men? Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Nelson, … Or, indeed, Mahomet? I ask from ignorance – do they too show a correlation with premature birth?
Jean Jacques Rousseau was no genius. He wrote several books. BFD
Characteristics of “genius” listed above describe the type 5 personality of the enneagram exactly
Calculating premature birth in the premodern era is very hard. It’s easy for any woman to be almost a month off in guessing when she conceived, depending when her period occurred. A lot of 8th month children are likely to be 9th months.
Second, we think of women as always keeping good track of their periods both now and in older times. This isn’t true. Many women only pay attention when they start the inconvenience of bleeding, and both then and now they may not bother to mark a calendar. Some women really don’t pay attention at all when they miss periods, and only start noticing when they develop a baby bump, which isn’t even going to occur until about the 3rd month.
We really have no good idea whether these geniuses were born prematurely or not, and I really doubt most of them were.
On the physical side of things, the current heavyweight champion of the world, Tyson Fury, was born three months premature with a bodyweight of one pound. Thirty years later, he’s six foot nine and 270, with mobility skills that would classify him as a physical genius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyson_Fury#Early_life
Same with tomatoes, not just grapes.
When people speak of “rich” soils as regards agriculture, they (right or wrong) mean nitrogen. Soils can be “rich” by being high in other nutrients, though. Agronomists and soil scientists figured out fairly long ago that it is the desires of the grower that matter here and advised different combinations of nutrients for each specific crop accordingly.
Yes, and remember the Poldark books (and 2 TV series)? This theme was central to the whole story. That is, the boy Valentine was not really fathered by Elizabeth’s husband George Warleggan. An old Auntie made real mischief out of this. (Premature babies have no fingernails, no hair, she said.) Etc. Such a soap opera!
I am curious, Alden, have you read Rousseau? As in the actual works completely? I disagree with him in many ways, yet I do see him as very intelligent. I am not sure of genius, as I think that is a term applied in the eye of the beholder, however, Rousseau did write some very thought-provoking texts–in my opinion–and he is worthy of study as an important intellectual.
There is no corroboration that many, or most of these examples were premature births. The entire premise is speculative and seems to be a regurgitation of pre-existent theories that hearken back to the late 19th century.
I do not know whether or not they were born prematurely, but four men that I think of being absolute geniuses are Henry Ford, Nikola Tesla, Edwin Howard Armstrong and George Westinghouse.
Sure, Henry Ford made a very poor choice by selecting Harry Bennett as his “enforcer” and it took him too long to recognize the need and importance of unions. George Westinghouse made some very bad financial decisions, but that was not his area of expertise – mechanics was where he excelled. Edwin Howard Armstrong paid no attention to the people who told him that this or that could not be done in radio and electronics. He applied his knowledge and made many very important inventions AM & FM radio, television, improved radar and even cell phones use circuitry developed by Armstrong.
Thank you.
I do not dispute your research, but if you are the sort of person who likes sometimes to find out things you did not previously know, and that others knew long before you, you might be interested in reading the first few chapters of “Tristram Shandy”, which include a running satire on the fact that the ***intellectuals*** of the day did not understand anything at all about childbirth, and even the professional doctors did not. Remember, in those golden days, there were not real specialists among professionals (the class of people I was talking about) on the sort of thing we are talking about, and, as you noted, the care of newborn babies was widespread, thus reducing each individual’s exposure to the spectrum of ‘different’ kinds of babies, and so your reference is to the very few people who did know about the variations. Even in a normal household you would see what, one or two infants a year? Newton’s father and others to whom I was referring were almost certainly not among that lucky few.
I’ve read most of Rousseau’s works. I don’t see what was genius about any of his ideas. It looks like Henry Tudor King Henry 7 of England is pictured just above the baby in the center.
A pretty good argument can be made that Rousseau is the greatest monster in western civilization since the Enlightenment
Let’s wait for Priss Factor to weigh in on this one, shall we?
“julie” (‘or the new Eloisa’) (a novel in epistolary format by Rousseau) was one of the most popular novels of the century, exhibiting, they say, wonderful insights on friendship and love. I have read “Clarissa Harlowe”, a novel that is many times longer than “Julie”, and if Rousseau’s roughly contemporaneous novel (which I have not read) is anywhere in that absolutely amazing Clarissa-level league of great novels that exhibit understanding of and compassion for the human heart , as “Clarissa Harlowe” is …. well then, props to Rousseau.
The person just above the baby in the center is Henry Tudor King Henry 7 of England. His father died November 3 1456. At the time it was widely known his mother was 7 months pregnant. His mother was one of the first heirs to the throne of England on the Lancaster side. Had she been a boy she would have been a candidate for sovereign when her father the Duke of Suffolk died. His father Edmund Tudor was the half brother of the King of England Henry 6.
Lady Margaret was important not so much in the line of succession. But because she had the largest army in England at the time. Inherited from her father, the Duke if Suffolk who died when she was 9.
There was no national army, under the control of the king in England until the 1700s. So the sovereigns power depended on the nobles using their private armies for the sovereign.
So the dates and pregnancy were closely followed at the time. There was rejoicing in the Lancaster side when Lady Margaret married and soon became pregnant. If she couldn’t be sovereign because she was a woman, a boy child could at age 16 or so.
Henry 7 was born January 28 1457 a complete 9 month pregnancy. Unless the hundreds of biographies are wrong that his father Edmund Tudor died November 3 1456 when his mother Lady Margaret Tudor was 7 months pregnant.
Churchill was born 7 months after his parents marriage yes. But it was well known he was a robust normal weight for a full term baby. His paternal grandparents held up his paternal grandfather for a bigger dowry. Churchill’s father Randolph didn’t marry his mother Jennie for her dowry but for love. Their wedding was very simple and hurried. Over the objections of Randolph’s parents. Just because a baby is born 7 instead of 9 months after the parent’s Marriage doesn’t mean the baby is premature.
Consensus of biographers is it was the pregnancy that caused Randolph Churchill’s parents to accept a low dowry and a hurried wedding. And when he was born it was the usual snicker snicker back in the days when pre marital chastity was the norm.
I would need to read the book and see what the author cited as facts about dates of conception and birth. Newton and Rousseau were from ordinary families. Not royal families during the War if the Roses like Henry Tudor whose mother held both a blood and military claim to the throne. So who would really know the dates of conception? The death of babies soon after birth was very very common until about 1900. I will have to read the book to see if he was correct about the rest of the historical figures he mentioned.
The only people who would really know the month of conception would be the mothers anyway.
I read the New Eloise. What’s the big deal about it? Hippie dippie silliness I read some of Rousseau’s other works too. His preaching about child care totally contradicted what he did with his own 5 children. Dumped them in the orphanage discarded baby boxes within a day or two of birth.
Refusing to marry Therese the woman he lived with for decades and having 5 children with her and dumping the babies at the orphanage door a day after birth was not the behavior of a decent man.
If he didn’t want children condoms were available. And abortions and herbal morning after teas. And the couple weren’t poor and down and out either.
Are you saying bastards are genius?
If so, society should encourage cheating!
You are rightfully upset by his personal behavior, however, I am referring to his political and social texts. He has had immense influence on some of the most important figures of the 19th and 20th centuries, and on the American (disputed to what extent) and the French revolutions.
I get the impression you have not read those texts, or at most, little excerpts. There is also a huge secondary literature by scholars and philosophers and theoreticians on his work. Like him or not, and I do not like him as an individual, he was/is very important right up until today in social and political issues. His shadow is still here in many ways.
Now, does that make him a genius? I don’t know, I don’t think so–necessarily–but he is intelligent and very influential (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc.). Some were influenced in advancing his ideas, some in refuting him, some in a combination.
In my opinion, I think your sentence is better written: “A very good argument can be made that Rousseau influenced some of the greatest monsters in western civilization.”
Just my opinion though!
I agree with you that Rousseau was a very foolish man.
I am sort of disappointed that your take was to argue with me on the relative value of his contribution to what is good in this world —- of course I agree with you on that.
That being said, we need to do a better job of describing how talented people operate. Simply acknowledging their failures is a good first step, but let’s be better than that.
People like you and me, who know what art is, who know that what is called genius in the modern world is almost always a sham (fake news, as the kids these days say) —- people like you and me should not be wasting our time pretending that one or the other of us is unaware that Rousseau was a fool, although the poor little man was uniquely gifted at whatever it was he was doing. The point is that what he was doing was not worth doing. I get that, and if I were capable of being annoyed at being misunderstood on the internet (I’m not), I would be annoyed that you intimated that I did not get that,
You want to make the world a better place? —- don’t act as if people like me are ignorant. Say what is important —– that GOD loves us all, uniquely, and that political systems, like those that Rousseau argued for, are the enemy of all of God’s creatures—– say what is important. GOD loves us all, nobody is enough of a genius to judge other people without understanding their heart, and even the greatest of artists came nowhere near to a real understanding of the human heart, and so all we can do is pray that the fools in this world repent and understand that we simply cannot join up with bad ideologies, that we have to pray for each other, and if we are incapable of praying, we have to do our best not to be like Rousseau and his ilk.
Millions of people around the world consume Dutton’s products, and by doing so, they may be getting a false understanding of the world. Dutton himself has publicly claimed that he was born with low quantitative and visuo-spatial intelligence, but a very high verbal one (similar to me). As such, when he uses a study to come to a conclusion, he is unable to determine if there are any mathematical errors in the study he is using, rendering the study invalid. For example, Dutton has been using Perkin’s book “The Welfare Trait” to make public claims that welfare very strongly facilitates high fertility among European-Englishmen who are unintelligent and Psychopathic. However, Dr. Woodley of Menie called Dutton out on his fallacy live on the Jolly Heretic show; Woodley, who actually possesses high quantitative and visuo-spatial intelligence, reviewed Perkins mathematics and discovered major errors. While the use of welfare did indeed facilitate an increase in fertility of European-Englishmen with low intelligence and Psychopathology, the effect was actually a lot weaker than Perkins’ original conclusion.
Thus, Dutton’s numerous public conclusions are based on numerous studies that he does not have the innate ability to verify for accuracy. Thus, by consuming Dutton’s products, his patrons may be getting a false understanding of the world.
Another example is where Dutton regularly publicly mentions that relious thinking causes ethnocentric sentiments. He references a study in which test subjects who were religious were asked to have religous thoughts, and a certain part of the brain significantly increased in bio-chemical activity. Then test subjects were asked to have ethnocentric thoughts, and the same brain region saw the increase in activity. The conlcusion of the study was that this specific brain region was responsible for both religious and ethnocentric thoughts/sentiments. Dutton mentioned this on his show, but Dr. Woodly called him out on it live on the show, pointing out that this study has not been replicated, and that with the current Replication Crisis, such a significant conclusion should not be accepted as a conclusive theory until it has been replicated several times. The Replication Crisis is the ongoing problem where so many studies on the human brain are not being successfully replicated due to the initial studies containing unintentional errors or fraud.
Thus, Dutton seems to me to use many studies in his conclusions that have not been replicated, and this does not seem to be a problem for him, since he thinks more like a poet than a mathematician. Thus, my suggestion is that no one should consume any of Dutton’s products because they may end up getting an innacurate understanding of the world. I would suggest people read Dr. Woodley of Menie’s research instead: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=mmoY0-kAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate
Thanks for your reply. I agree that you wouldn’t HAVE to be autistic to excel at a given sport, as I know someone well who is a natural athlete and who is not autistic in the least.
But Messi is different. He stands so far above everybody else (those who have worked just as hard at their sport), and does it with ease and artistry. As somebody said: “They tell me that all men are equal in God’s eyes. This player makes you seriously think about those words.” He is a once-in-a-century phenomenon (probably more like once in 1,000 years). He is simply amazing, a football genius.
He is an introvert, married with children, and a very humble man. But you can see the use of math and physics in his play, almost like he’s ahead of the play and can see beforehand how it’s all going to play out.
Me? No, I’m not autistic, but thanks for the good advice, anyway.
You are very, very stupid. A woman who cheats can simply go to bed with the husband at the first suspicion of pregnancy, or with a certain regularity throughout an affair.
And you know nothing of babies either.
Africans have naturally shorter gestational periods. Does the NGO consider that?
Yes, I have found that the most important/interesting stuff mostly comes from Woodley (eg. Social Epistasis model, Victorian IQ, IQ in classical societies, work on g for personality). Where is Woodley currently publishing his work?
Dutton’s material is breezy and fun and he’s a good interviewer letting all kinds of people speak and challenging their opinions.
Does this book take a random sample of geniuses and calculate what % were geniuses or does it simply list geniuses known to be premature?
If premature factor and genius famine are true, maybe current “famine” could be partially attributed to prenatal care.
I understand that Messi is unique. I don’t care.
– the only thing that would impress me about Messi is this – if I learned he was humble and loved the people who knew him, and if he understood that, even if had seen the angels of GOD, looking at GOD with love in their eyes (I don’t think there is any evidence that he has, by the way), it meant nothing if he was not as good as he could possibly be to other people. Nothing I know about the little guy makes me think he is much more special in that regard than most people like him, which is sad.
Autism comes in a broadband, and in mild cases, is not perceived during ordinary interactions. It is highly possible most of the old bachelor geniuses were autistic. But every autistic savant needs a non-genius, non-autistic deputy/ patron/ admirer, who acts as a bridge between the savant and this world. So if we see a duo of a genius and a constant companion, chances are it was an autistic savant.
People the world over get a lot of happiness from watching Messi. No other player is revered like he is, and it’s not solely because of his ability, but because he is humble and kind and does not take his gift for granted. He does a lot of charity work as well. I just don’t think you know enough about him to be aware of this.
Churchill a genus?!
He wasn’t even a species.
You can wait all you want for whoever you want…….
Thomasina, thanks for the reply. I know more about him than you think.
I’ve read most of Rousseau’s works. Just a lot of hippie dippie romantic era nonsense. The American Revolution was a Masonic operation. Nothing to do with Rousseau. The French Revolution was a disaster that led to the killing of 2 generations of men and the enrichment of the Bonaparte family. And great instability in France during the 19th century.
Silly man.
You try to position yourself as intellectually superior. Yet you appear to believe that a man was once born on Earth who healed the dead, conjured loaves and fishes, and levitated on water.
You presume this is literally true? I presume very little. Instead, I believe in what I can confirm through experience. Who is more intelligent, the guy who believes an ancient allegory filled with impossible and contradictory occurrences is a history book? Or the guy who demands proof of information?
You can assume the mantle of faith, but intelligence is mine. And I will tell you also that I no longer need faith, because I have observed enough of God directly. The Bible is quite simply a deception.
You have confirmed that you have never read anything from Rousseau, and you have confirmed that your reading comprehension is abysmal. I suspected as much.
I’ll give you a tip: it becomes very obvious when someone uses Wikipedia, a couple of website articles/blogs, and a some YouTube videos as their foundation for arguments, opinions, and thoughts. That is bad. You really should start reading the actual texts (of any thinker or topic) in entirety and since many are full of technical terms or require a knowledge of context/timeframe, you really also should read and study the secondary literature (on whatever thinker or topic).
Sounds like a lot of people are upset about not being geniuses. Count yourselves lucky! Most of the world, especially the Head Girl types who manage it, have just the same reaction as you to real geniuses: envious malice spewing like Linda Blair in the Exorcist. To be a genius for the past half-century or more has been to be: virtually unemployable, without wife or family, few if any friends, disrespected, ignored at best, attacked by every narcissistic nobody for nothing. The 90% of people with IQs below 119 are closer to an IQ 70 moron than an IQ 170 genius, but the genius has to live in a society where the morons are in charge of everything, and hate the the idea that anyone is better than them.
We all owe everything we call civilization, all the technology and high culture, to geniuses of the past, but treat the geniuses of today far worse than we treat the mediocrities, psychopaths and grifters who run things, worse than average people, worse than useless people, worse than stupid people. But no one is going to hire someone smarter than them and honest enough to tell them the many ways they’re wrong.
(If you’re not one of those envious mediocre people, I’ll genius for you for less than most decent lawyers charge. ;^)
I have to disagree that critics don’t create. They experience a work of art, a product, etc, and then analyze how well the experience they had was with a set of criteria in their mind as they do it. They have to organize their thought process and be able to communicate why or why not they enjoyed something.
I enjoy reading the work of great critics before and after I experience what they are reviewing myself. If absolutely nothing else I’d say the fact they create something that someone can enjoy is reason enough for their work to exist and keep existing. It’s deeper then that though, the best criticism can be used to guide the creation of future products that the critic is using, and that’s invaluable.
In comparison to the people who actually create the product the reviewers are reviewing usually doing much less work, and especially if it’s just some dude giving an opinion like “it sucks” or “it’s good”, and who can’t even explain why. Those people do indeed suck, but they aren’t the types of people you should be thinking of when you are talking about criticism.
Looks like Dutton was arguing that there is no connection between genius and premature birth last year (June 2 2021): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43539-021-00005-1
“A number of very eminent and highly creative individuals are often claimed to have been born prematurely, and the idea that widely recognised scientific geniuses such as Newton, Kepler, and Darwin were preterm has become a cultural meme through the popular press, and through popular and academic science books. This potentially raises very important questions, related to the nature and origin of creativity and innovation, as it has been suggested that prematurity and genius may be linked. Here, we review suggested links between prematurity and genius, in terms of psychological traits associated with genius, and compare the percentage of top geniuses in Murray’s Human Accomplishment who are claimed to have been born prematurely to that of Western populations in general. Although a significant number of those in Murray’s sample have been asserted to be preterm, we found that none of them could be said with certainty to have been so, refuting the hypothesis that there is a clear connection between prematurity and scientific genius.”
“1. In addition, Linden et al. (2000), in a textbook on premature babies aimed at the parents of such babies, also assert that Voltaire and Rousseau were born early. Both were small and sickly infants, but there is no direct evidence that they were born prematurely (Pearson, 2010; Rousseau, 1903). They also allege that ‘Napoleon Bonaparte’ was born prematurely. In fact, it was his nephew, usually referred to as Emperor Napoleon III or as Louis-Napoleon, who was preterm (Addison, 2006, p. 272).”
Also, to throw my hat in with the shit-flinging: Rousseau was a genius novelist but a poor political philosopher. Though his reputation as the “father of the Revolution” is a myth. The Contrat Social, supposedly the breviary of the revolutionaries, was not reprinted at all between 1775 and 1790. It was condemned in Geneva not for its political ideas but for its chapter on religion.
I was going to leave a comment for Ghali, till I saw yours. Since I realize I would not be able to top that I will simply say to you, “Bravo.”
Sulu
Seriously, is there any other reason why a genius could be held back from “finding” his true calling? For instance, if it were never safe to do so, could this hold him back?
There is one fairly large reason. England had not been successfully invaded since 1066 AD, and its various factions (while retaining their identities) had at least reached a modus vivendi and could safely assume no foreign armies on English soil. In consequence, the group benefits from tolerating (and even supporting) genius actually accrued to the group that tolerated (or even supported) genius.
In a multi-cultural society that is undergoing actual replacement level competition between ethnic groups, this is not the case. Given a genius from group A, but operating in a section of society in which group B is dominant, one would expect group B to destroy or at least cripple the genius, lest group A be benefitted by the works of the genius.
Intersectionality and Marxism are a crude version of this, as is critical race theory. For that matter, the strong reaction against Anglo-Saxon industry in the US after about 1890 (https://www.thoughtco.com/who-were-the-muckrakers-104842) could be considered as another example of such suppression, as could the Jewish efforts documented in McDonald’s Culture of Critique.