Wow! Fun stuff today!
IMO, the word
genius is misused, especially by the media. An example I see of this idea is applying it to anyone with an IQ greater than 160 or so. I remember seeing a newspaper article about boy in the UK with an "Einstein" IQ of 160. And of course, the writer of the article about the study in China invoked genius.
Yes, 160 is a very high IQ, but there are something like 200,000 - 250,000 people with IQs that high roaming the planet right now. So even though 160+ is rare, there are still an awful lot of people out there in that category. Also, I seriously doubt that IQ alone is enough to make a person a "genius" or high-level foundational thinker, as Einstein was.
By "foundational thinker," I mean a person who consistently thinks of new ideas that are way outside the mainstream and don't follow logically from existing models. The process involves dreaming up new ideas that are fundamentally new, applying them to existing models, and creating a shift in the way people view a subject. Sometimes the ideas are subtle, yet profound shifts from existing ideas and sometimes they're radically different, but the effect is the same either way: the fields to which they apply undergo fundamental shifts.
Personally, I think that foundational thinking requires creativity, thoughtfulness (recognizing that there is a problem where others don't see one, or picking out what's critically important from a mound of ideas, and digging deep), stubbornness, and a willingness to challenge ideas that are accepted as given by most other very talented people. And a high IQ, especially in fields like the sciences.
This is all in contrast to master-craftsmen thinkers who can take a new idea, perfect it, apply it, and develop its fullest potential. These people don't have the same qualities as foundational thinkers (who in turn often don't have the qualities of the master craftsmen). Both types of thinkers are needed for healthy scientific development. IMO, we push the foundational types aside these days because they don't appear to be as "productive" by the industrial metrics currently used in academia. Big new ideas take time and don't fit the publish-or-perish model.
The most lucid explanation I've read on this subject is in the last section of
The Trouble with Physics.
