The Wrong Way to Treat Child Geniuses

I actually enjoyed the comments more than the article. Not that I disagreed with everything the author had to say, I just think he spends too much time rhetorically splitting hairs.

"It isn't exactly wrong to say that Terry Tao and other former prodigies like him are geniuses. But it is more accurate to say that what they accomplished was genius." and "Most child prodigies are highly successful—but most highly successful people weren't child prodigies."

I'm uncertain as to whether he harbors some strange guilt about his lot in life, but with pronouncements like the above, he sure is trying to minimize the value and/or role of the genius.

I've seen that quote by Twain on occasion, and it always irritates me. There's another line from that source, rarely included, that seems to belittle the person ultimately credited with a given accomplishment: "He added his little mite--that is all he did." Ugh.

But I do agree with the bit about needing more mathy doctors, CEOs, teachers, etc.

Maybe about 0.0001% of kids get the kind of attention he describes.

But the vast majority of kids in America are not being offered an education that teaches to their level.

So, eye opening to see how consistently, no matter what, over decades (my biological father is almost 80 years old and my biological paternal grandfather was about 55 years older than me and his father got close to 100 years)human behavior has not changed and then I remember well evolution takes time and if the human spark occurred 50,000? years ago, we have a long way to go and are there any 'geniuses' who think that this current Earth environment is going to hold out for us to get there? I actually worry about people because every once in a while I see an article about really poor air quality and it is no wonder some people are wearing masks to cover mouths, noses and even eyes.

This is absolutely not splitting hairs. This is an important point about statistics that people generally have poor intuitions about. Put very generally, the probability of A given B can be very different from the probability of B given A, yet people treat them as equivalent.

Here is a cartoon that may help. In the cartoon the "frequentist statistician" is calculating the probability that the machine says the sun exploded (A), if in fact the sun didn't (B); but he is using this as a proxy for the probability that the sun didn't explode (B) if the machine says it did (A). Which does not follow at all, leading the Bayesian statistician to bet money that the sun hasn't exploded.

Returning to the case in the article: What are the chances that a child prodigy (B) will go on to do great things (A)? Pretty high. What are the chances that the next Great Thing Doer (A) was a child prodigy (B)? Not the same thing.

Let's run some numbers. Just for the sake of argument, let's say a child prodigy who goes into the field of physics has a 1 in 100 chance of winning a Nobel prize (we'll use that as our stand-in for greatness). And let's say that the chances for a non-prodigy physicist are a paltry 1 in 10,000.* Now, when this year's Nobel prize for physics is announced, will you bet on that person having been a child prodigy, or not having been a child prodigy? If you choose "prodigy," you are going to be wrong 99% of the time. This type of error is called "ignoring base rates."


*These numbers are completely made up for the sake of argument. The point is about the intuitions that follow from them.

MegMeg's Nobel prize example is relevant to the board, but I can't resist pointing out that the example of this phenomenon that everybody needs to be aware of - because sadly, we have good research evidence* that most doctors completely fail to understand it, or at least to apply it correctly!! - is:

the probability that the test will be positive, given that you have the disease

is completely different from

the probability that you have the disease, given that the test is positive.

Doctors - i.e. even trained people who should know better - often treat these two as though they were the same, and hence overestimate the chance of disease by a lot (e.g., by a factor of 10).

* Gigerenzer, and Kahnemann and Tversky, have written about this extensively.

From the article:

Suppose a Study of Exceptional Talent qualifier who goes to graduate school is twice as likely to have a very successful academic career (getting tenure at a research university) than someone with a similar undergraduate GPA but who was not in SET. Depending on the interests and values of the non-SET person, it may well be rational to "quit" -- to not aim for a PhD but to look for work or go to professional school (law, business, medicine) instead. It is so difficult to get the academic jobs that PhDs want that I would encourage only the true superstars to go to graduate school. That is the advice I will give my children.

I enjoyed the article. He makes some good points. I ran across his book at a friends house recently and it looked really interesting. We were at a labor day bbq and of course was hiding from conversation and found this cool book.

This article reminded me that I wanted to get the book from the library to read.

I must need more coffee because I've read the article a few times and can't figure out what he's really trying to say.

I agree with others-- especially MegMeg and Colinsmum, who point out the logical fallacy related to the statistics here.


Worth repeating. YES.

I also found it puzzling that the real problem highlighted by the author (well, in my own estimation, anyway) seems to have been quite clearly identified by many of those high-ability persons commenting on it-- that is, that it's all the more important to give such children truly appropriate educational and socio-emotional supports as children.

That's not the same thing as media feting, or parental fawning. The author seems to be stating that it's unfair to children such as he was to place unrealistic notions in their heads, and unfair to make them arrogant or 'too sure of their greatness.' (maybe it was just me?) Because, naturally, most of them (just like everyone else) are destined to be just one of a great herd of "pretty awesome" people, not "Very Superior and Awesome" ones, in the double-secret inner sanctum. Or something.

That false dichotomy really struck me as an out-of-touch kind of outlook, to be honest. For every HG+ person with this kind of upbringing, there are ten others who are berated, ignored, or just plain ground into dust by their circumstances.

I do agree that we should encourage non-prodigies to explore "hard" topics that prodigies shine at... and that we should NOT anticipate that there is "something wrong" with a prodigy that hasn't won a Fields or Nobel at at 25. Was Bach a less impressive composer than Mozart because he was a "late bloomer?" I hardly think so.


I'd also like to point out-- both to this author and also to Bostonian, above, that there is life outside of the Ivory Tower. Even if you happen to have a PhD.

Okay, maybe "rhetorically splitting hairs" wasn't a good term, as others have pointed out, but it was pointing out the annoyingly obvious.

Okay so the top 0.01% aren't going to have the majority of "innovative contributions to society" (whatever that is; define it how you like).

But suppose the top X% (in IQ, or some other measure) contribute f(X)% of "innovative contributions to society" (or some such thing). What does f look like? For which X% is f(X)%=50%?

Maybe the top 0.01% contribute 1% (100 times their "share"), while
the top 5% contribute 50% (10 times their "share").

So the higher IQ kids end up disproportionately making intellectual contributions to society. (Duh, Captain Obvious strikes again.) But if they are to do this, they need to be properly educated to their ability level. J0rdan Ellenberg seems to be trying to rebut this claim by choosing X% so small that f(X)% has to be small.

The argument I just made is so obvious that it would have occurred to him as quick as a flash of lightning. Failing to explicitly present this argument was downright sneaky.

Except for a few "famous" prodigies I'm not sure most child geniuses get more attention that your standard hot housed kid. And perhaps less, since I know a lot of kids who spend years & years in private after school tutoring/classes who by the time they hit H.S. can do the same work through a lot more effort. Those kids are given a lot less time to play and explore. Quite different from a kid who's idea of playing and exploring is doing mathematics puzzles.

I completely agree with this statement.

On another note, I think so much goes into raising an adult who feels successful. Personality, perfectionist tendencies, work ethic, type of education, peer group, etc.

It seems silly to me to try and isolate one component and say, "this is what it takes to raise a person who has the ability to xyz."

For me, the biggest program a school could offer is a challenge. From my perspective, the kids who aren't challenged either get lazy or think they are so smart that they don't have to work very hard. To me, this is a shame.

It is hard to go discover a cure for cancer when you don't know how to work/think very hard. And going through x number of school years without challenge makes it hard to know how to work through a challenge.

I WANT every kid to be challenged appropriately. I don't understand why that has to be debated or difficult.

This is just my 2 cents, but probably isn't worth that much.

"But believe me, when you find a prodigy, you find an ambitious parent in the background."

Ruggiero Ricci

I think most people including teachers believe this and too often, their view is confirmed by crazy pushy parents. It's a vicious cycle.

I think this article says pretty much nothing meaningful about how to nurture the gifted, though I do agree with the secondary premise that deeper math talent in the general population wouldn't be a bad thing. The author seems to rail against filling GT children's heads with pie-in-the-sky dreams without inoculating them with persistence and direction. No news there.

I agree with 22B's point about the author's obfuscation of his underlying argument. Ironically, the author's argument actually implicitly places heightened demands on the GT, because he's arguing their relative multiplier is insufficient to merit supporting their development of their talents, which is exactly what he's railing against. He can't have it both ways.

Frankly, the author sounds like he's whining for not feeling being more personally impressive. Sour grapes, cognitive dissonance, etc.

In case my distaste for the article isn't apparent enough, I'll say that people like him set the case of GT students back. He'll be perceived by the general public as an authority on GT, and his negative portrayal of offering resources to the GT (nature and extent undefined) will probably cause some people to advocate against an appropriate education for the gifted. I shake my fist in his general direction.

I quite liked the article. I didn't see him offering any kind of proposal about gifted education, either for the extreme tail or for a broader segment of the gifted. I certainly didn't see any proposal that there should be LESS effort to educate these groups.

He was addressing one very specific issue, which is the excessive "media feting" (as HK puts it) of those in the extreme tail; and the consequent pernicious effects that this Great Hero myth has on both the feted kids themselves, and on those around them who are not so singled out.

I agree with MegMeg - it took me a while to get over the Great Hero thing, and I wasn't really as celebrated as a lot of these kids. I still feel vaguely guilty that "all" I do is write patent applications and raise my kids. Not only will I never win a Nobel Prize, I probably won't even have minor successes like making partner at a law firm or becoming a judge. I'll just practice law and live my life. It was embarrassing having people at my high school reunion telling me they expected to see me on the news accepting awards by now.

I don't see this article as having a lot to do with general gifted education - it's about the way we treat the extreme tail.

This problem isn't limited to extreme gifties. It happens to high school athletes all the time. It did a pretty good job of destroying a kid in my high school.

I think that US culture has a serious problem with hero-neediness, so we invent them to satisfy the need. It's not healthy.

Agreed. We have plenty of heros. Our problem, culturally, is that we want demigods instead.

While everyone sings for your day to be happy
you blow out those forty candles
with a pang of regret...

What he did was to take one of the arguments that is made for gifted education and to skewer it quite severely.

Ehn, I think it's a bad argument anyway. Children should be given an enriching education because it is a human right, not because they are an untapped national resource.

In general, I think it's a bad idea to hang one's hat on arguments that don't reflect one's real reasons for wanting something. Suppose, for example, a study were to show that most prodigies go on to do clever but useless things with their intellect, and don't actually benefit society at any greater rates than average-to-MG kids. If the "national resource" argument has been allowed to dominate the conversation, then that would be a justification for eliminating anything that serves PG.