Thomas R. Verny is a clinical psychiatrist, academic, award-winning author, poet and public speaker.
asserted
Verny → win → ?
He is the author of eight books, including the global bestseller The Secret Life of the Unborn Child and The Embodied Mind: Understanding the Mysteries of Cellular Memory, Consciousness and Our Bodies.
asserted
He → include → Memory
I recently saw Early Genius, a play by much-loved veteran Stratford Festival actor, Steve Ross.
asserted
I → see → actor
The comedy centres on four children under eight, each with a genius-level IQ.
asserted
comedy → centre → IQ
Seeing the show and talking to Steve about what attracted him to write it made me question the idea that a high IQ was really enough to constitute genius.
asserted
IQ → see → genius
In surveying the landscape of current scientific knowledge about giftedness I discovered the work of Rena F. Subotnik, an American psychologist and a prominent scholar in giftedness, talent development and gifted education.
asserted
I → survey → giftedness
She argues that giftedness should not be thought of simply as possessing an unusually high IQ or an exceptional ability in childhood.
asserted
giftedness → argue → childhood
Early potential must be transformed through education, practice, opportunity, motivation, persistence, and other psychosocial factors into increasingly sophisticated expertise and, in rare cases, eminence (her term for genius).
asserted
potential → transform → genius
While people like Marie Curie, Mozart, or Picasso were conspicuously gifted as children, most gifted children do not rise to the level of geniuses.
asserted
children → rise → geniuses
Some may become very successful but not geniuses.
uncertain
Some → become → ?
Many children who later in life reach genius status show little promise in their youth.
asserted
who → reach → youth
Thomas Edison struggled with conventional schooling, while Albert Einstein, despite his early mathematical ability, failed the general portion of the entrance examination to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic at age 16.
asserted
Einstein → struggle → age
William Shakespeare received only the standard grammar-school education until his mid-teens, when he had to quit to help the family financially.
asserted
he → receive → family
He never attended university.
asserted
He → attend → university
Yet he became arguably the greatest playwright who ever lived.
asserted
who → become → ?
Leonardo da Vinci received even less formal education.
asserted
Vinci → receive → education
Born illegitimate, he was instructed mainly in ordinary spoken and written Italian rather than in Latin, and received no teaching in Greek, philosophy and mathematics available to boys destined for higher education.
asserted
he → bear → education
Still, da Vinci became one of the greatest painters and most diverse scientific minds in history.
asserted
Vinci → become → history
Historically, both became enmeshed with IQ testing, but scientists now realize that this was a mistake.
asserted
this → become → testing
[2] Childhood giftedness may provide the raw material for genius, but it does not predict what the adult will ultimately do with it.
uncertain
adult → provide → it
Giftedness is better understood in terms of potential for exceptional achievement within a field whereas genius implies that exceptional potential has actually been converted into consequential accomplishment, genuine breakthroughs.
asserted
potential → understand → accomplishment
[3]
A child with an IQ of 160 is extraordinarily gifted, but we don’t automatically call that child a genius.
asserted
we → call → child
Einstein is considered a genius not because someone measured his IQ but because he changed our understanding of space and time.
asserted
he → consider → space
When Albert Einstein died in 1955, the pathologist who performed his autopsy removed his brain.
asserted
who → die → brain
What followed was perhaps the most extraordinary foraging for genius in three pounds of greyish, gelatinous tissue ever undertaken.
asserted
followed → follow → tissue
The original and most famous study was performed by neuroscientist Marian Diamond.
asserted
study → perform → Diamond
She and her team were the first to publish evidence that the brain can change with experience and improve with enrichment, what is now called neuroplasticity.
asserted
what → publish → enrichment
Dr. Diamond and colleagues compared samples of Einstein’s brain with those of 11 men.
asserted
Diamond → compare → men
They reported that in the left Brodmann area 39, better known as the angular gyrus, Einstein had significantly more glial cells per neuron.
asserted
Einstein → report → neuron
Neuroscientists regard it as a hub where different kinds of information are integrated to create meaning.
asserted
kinds → regard → meaning
The authors cautiously stated that the difference might relate to increased metabolic activity associated with unusually complex neuronal activity.
uncertain
difference → state → activity
[4]
Others found that Einstein’s prefrontal cortex had greater neuronal density, although neuron size and the number of neurons beneath a given cortical surface area did not differ.
asserted
size → find → area
[5]
Dean Falk, distinguished research professor at Florida State University, and her team, analyzed 14 previously unpublished photographs of Einstein’s entire cerebral cortex.
asserted
Falk → analyze → cortex
They compared his cortical anatomy with descriptions of 85 other human brains.
asserted
They → compare → brains
They reported that Einstein’s brain had a complex prefrontal cortex and distinctive parietal anatomy, a brain area involved in mathematical, visuospatial and other forms of higher cognition.
asserted
brain → report → cognition
[6] A few years later, this finding was supported by the research of Sandra F. Witelson, a neuroscientist at McMaster University in Hamilton.
asserted
finding → support → Hamilton
In a later study Prof. Falk, collaborating with Weiwei Men at the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance, found that Einstein’s corpus callosum, the brain’s main communication highway bridging the two cerebral hemispheres, was thicker than those of comparison groups.
asserted
callosum → collaborate → groups
They interpreted this as suggesting unusually extensive interhemispheric connectivity.
asserted
They → interpret → connectivity
[8]
These studies examine one extraordinary individual after his death, often using small and imperfectly matched control samples.
asserted
studies → examine → samples
They cannot establish that Einstein’s anatomical peculiarities accounted for his genius.
asserted
peculiarities → establish → genius
…and 53 more, not listed.
The Aporia
