Genius

Geniuses are Just Like Us

By Robin Lloyd
Special to LiveScience
posted: 11 January 2006
07:49 am ET

Everyone has heard of the mad scientist or the absent-minded professor. But a look at some of the ordinary and extraordinary imperfections of a few great minds reveals that geniuses are just like us.

In other words, the talents that geniuses are born with, such as math, cognitive and creative skills, must be nurtured socially and economically in childhood or they die on the vine, with rare exceptions, John Simmons, author of “The Scientific 100” (Citadel Press, 2000) told LiveScience.

Same goes for “the rest of us” and our slightly less spectacular talents.

“The scientific genius who grew up in grinding poverty is an exceedingly rare bird,” he said. “If it seems there was a great flowering of scientific genius out of Eastern Europe beginning in the late nineteenth century, it was due in large part to a developing middle class, a stable family life, and secular opportunities for both men and women."

genius