Genius

Albert Einstein, archetype of genius.

A genius is a person of great intelligence, who shows an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work. The term may also be applied to someone who is a polymath or a prodigy. Although the term is sometimes used to denote the possession of a superior talent in any field (e.g., Roger Federer may be said to have a genius for tennis or Winston Churchill for statesmanship), in many instances the term is used specifically to denote an exceptional natural capacity of intelligence in areas of art, literature, music, science and mathematics. Geniuses that have made significant contributions to their fields of expertise and whose work has transcended their own era include Isaac Newton, Einstein, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, Rembrandt, Michaelangelo, Bach and Mozart.

Etymology

In Ancient Rome, the genius was the guiding or "tutelary" spirit of a person, or even of an entire gens. A related term is genius loci, the spirit of a specific locale. In contrast, the internal driving force within all living things is the animus. A specific spirit, or dæmon, may inhabit an image or icon, giving it supernatural powers.

In this context, the plural of "genius" is "geniuses." The form "genii," the plural of the word in Latin, is the plural of a different kind of genius: the aforementioned guardian spirit of Roman and Greek mythology.

A comparable term from Arabic lore is a djinn, often Anglicized as "genie." Note, however, that this term is considered a false friend, not a cognate by most Anglo-American anthropologists. Recent work by Russian, Romanian, Italian and a few American linguists may return the word to cognate status.

Identification

As genius is an individual of extraordinary intelligence, it is important to note at least two major "consensus" definitions of intelligence. First, from "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" a report of a task force convened by the American Psychological Association in 1995:

Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person’s intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena.

A second definition of intelligence comes from "Mainstream Science on Intelligence," which was signed by 52 intelligence researchers in 1994:

a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.

In the 1950’s, researchers and psychologists mainly identified giftedness and genius in terms of a high score on an IQ test. This is still one of the standard measures used and the general cutoff for many programs is often placed near the sigma 2 level on a standardized intelligence test, children above this level being labeled 'gifted', and above 160 as "exceptionally gifted" or "genius."

Some IQ testers use these classifications to describe differing levels of giftedness. The following bands apply with a standard deviation of σ = 15 on a standardized IQ test. Each band represents a difference of one standard deviation from the mean.

• Bright: 115+, or one in six (84th percentile)
• Moderately gifted: 130+, or 1 in 50 (97.9th percentile)
• Highly gifted: 145+, or 1 in 1000 (99.9th percentile)
• Exceptionally gifted/genius: 160+, or 1 in 30,000 (99.997th percentile)
• Profoundly gifted/genius: 175+, or 1 in 3 million (99.99997th percentile)

Unfortunately, most IQ tests do not have the capacity to discriminate accurately at higher IQ levels, and are perhaps only effective at determining whether a student is gifted rather than distinguishing among levels of giftedness. Although the Wechsler tests have a ceiling of about 160, their creator has admitted that they are intended to be used within the average range (between 70 and 130), and are not intended for use at the extreme ends of the population. The Stanford-Binet form L-M, currently outdated, was the only test that had a sufficient ceiling to identify the exceptionally and profoundly gifted. However, because the instrument is outdated, current results derived from the instrument generate inflated and inaccurate scores. The Stanford-Binet form V and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Fourth Revision, both recently released, are currently being evaluated for this population. Mensa offers IQ testing but these are only suitable for persons over the age of ten and a half years. Younger children need to be assessed by an educational psychologist to find out their IQ score. Also, those who are more gifted in areas such as the arts and literature tend to do poorly on IQ tests, which are generally verbal- and mathematical-skills related.

It is suggested that genius cannot be determined by IQ alone, where it falls into various domains. It is generally recognized that those who are transcendent in one or more fields (though again, this term is difficult to measure) can be considered geniuses. However, even with this caveat on its use, the concept of IQ is still criticized as being too narrow a mode of measuring something as ambiguous and diverse as the intellectual qualities of humanity. There are several examples of people with IQ levels in the genius range while having a disability or very low level in one of the subcategories. The IQ test has also been criticized as being racist in its application and conclusions despite that these tests are designed to eliminate race/sex for example by predicting numerical sequences.

Types of Genius

A broader definition, going beyond high scores on IQ tests, has been proposed to describe genius—a creative individual who is able to arrive at insights that are novel and yet strike a deeply responsive chord across the world's diverse cultures. Such a definition is a more accurate description of individuals such as Mozart, Confucius, or Shakespeare who have made advances that reverberate loudly across cultures and time.

Harold Bloom has described genius as

"the trait of standing both of and above an age, the ancient principle that recognizes and hallows the God within us, and the gift of breathing life into what is best in every living person."

Multiple Intellligences

The multiple intelligences hypothesis put forth by Howard Gardner in his 1983 book Frames of Mind states there are at least eight types of intelligences, each with its own type of genius:

• Linguistic intelligence
• Logical-mathematical intelligence
• Bodily/Kinesthetic
• Musical intelligence
• Spatial intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence
• Intrapersonal intelligence
• Naturalist intelligence

Two additional have been explored by Gardner, but not officially added:

• Spiritual intelligence
• Moral intelligence

Artistic Genius

Artistic genius (strong Spatial intelligence) may show itself in early childhood as a prodigy or later in life; either way, geniuses eventually differentiate themselves from the others through great originality. It is thought intellectual geniuses have crisp, clear-eyed visions of given situations, in which interpretation is unnecessary, and they build or act on the basis of those facts, usually with tremendous energy. Accomplished geniuses in intellectual fields start out in many cases as child prodigies, gifted with superior memory or understanding. Some examples:

• Michaelangelo
• Leonardo daVinci
• Pablo Picasso
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• Vincent Van Gogh

Musical Genius

The classic skill of the musical genius is the capability of holding many different melodies in one's head at once and knowing how they interact together. It is said that the great classical composers:

• (Bach,
• Mozart,
• Beethoven,
• Chopin,

and others, could hold five, six, or even seven different melodies in their minds at once. They could write complicated music with many different parts all at once without having to hear it played. In comparison, the average person can only hold one melody in memory. Mozart, who apparently completed his musical compositions in his head and simply wrote them down when he was done, is supposed to have often said while drinking and conversing with friends, "I write music as a sow pisses."

Literary Genius

Extreme originality is a crucial component of the literary genius (inguistic intelligence). In Genius, Harold Bloom writes of 100 literary geniuses, and also includes several of their own definitions of genius. Blake, a visionary genius expressed that genius is always above its age. For Emerson, genius was the God within, the self of "Self-Reliance." James Russell Lowell said, "talent is that which is in a man's power: genius is that in whose power a man is." Other literary geniuses who transcended their eras include Shakespeare, Socrates, Plato, Goethe, Nietzche, Beckett, Chekhov, Emerson, Dickinson, Frost, Walt Whitman and many others. Bloom concluded that genius "by necessity, invokes the transcendental and the extraordinary; because it is fully conscious of them. Consciousness is what defines genius: Shakespeare, like his Hamlet, exceeds us in consciousness, goes beyond the highest order of consciousness that we are capable of knowing without him."

Scientific Geniuses

Among the great scientific geniuses (extraordinary logical-mathematical intelligence) are:

• Albert Einstein
• Stephen Hawking
• Jean Piaget
• Galileo
• Isaac Newton

Social and emotional issues

The social and emotional issues faced by a genius are the same as those faced by gifted children. Gifted children have greater psychomotor, sensual, imaginative, intellectual, and emotional "overexcitabilities" (OE). While every gifted child may not exhibit each OE, gifted children almost always exhibit higher than average intellectual and emotional intensities. Such high levels of intensities have been referred to as a “Tragic Gift.” To the layperson, these intensities might be perceived as psychopathological rather than indicators of a strong potential for advanced personality development. The intensity of the gifted has, unfortunately, resulted in some highly gifted individuals being improperly labeled due to an inappropriate assessment. Following are some of the challenges gifted children face.

• Isolation
• Perfectionism
• Underachievement
• Existential depression or anxiety

A genius's intense focus on a given subject might appear obsessive-compulsive in nature, but it might also simply be a choice made by the individual. If one is performing groundbreaking work in one's field, maintaining other elements of life might logically be relegated to insignificance.

A study found that approximately two-thirds of gifted children fall prey to bullying. Bullying leaves many of these students emotionally shattered, making them more prone to extreme anxiety, dangerous depression and sometimes violence. The researchers found that by eighth grade, more than two-thirds of gifted students had been victims. Jean Sunde Peterson, an associate professor of educational studies in Purdue's College of Education found that:

"All children are affected adversely by bullying, but gifted children differ from other children in significant ways...Many are intense, sensitive and stressed by their own and others' high expectations, and their ability, interests and behavior may make them vulnerable. Additionally, social justice issues are very important to them, and they struggle to make sense of cruelty and aggression. Perfectionists may become even more self-critical, trying to avoid mistakes that might draw attention to themselves."

Socio-emotional problems are more prevalent in geniuses with an IQ above 145 (on the Wechsler Scale). Asynchronous development is the primary cause of this. As most children do not share gifted children's interests, vocabulary, or desire to organize activities, the genius child may withdraw from society.

The isolation experienced by gifted individuals may not be caused by giftedness itself, but by society's response to giftedness. "In this culture, there appears to be a great pressure for people to be 'normal' with a considerable stigma associated with giftedness or talent." To counteract this problem, gifted education professionals recommend creating a peer group based on common interests and abilities. The earlier this occurs, the more effective it is likely to be in preventing isolation. As intelligence of a person increases, the number of those whom he or she considers peers tends to decrease. For example, at an IQ of 135 (on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) only every hundredth person would be of equal or greater IQ. This number shrinks significantly as IQ goes up.

Leta Hollingworth introduced the idea of an essential "communication limit" based on IQ. According to her theory, to be a good leader of one's contemporaries, he/she must be more intelligent but not too much more intelligent than the people who are being led. This implies that geniuses may not make good leaders of those substantially less gifted and that they could have disdain for authority. Critics reject the one-dimensional categorization of intelligence and note that history's most consequential leaders had to be exceptionally gifted in at least certain areas in order to attain the power and consequence they produced.

Other definitions of genius

Variegated examples from philosophers are indicative of attempts to either propose a definition of what genius is and what that implies in a limited context, or to establish certain qualifications that could deem "genius" as explicable and of fundamental value in a broader human context.

In the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, genius is a person in whom intellect predominates over "will" much more than within the average person. In Schopenhauer's aesthetics, this predominance of the intellect over the will allows the genius to create artistic or academic works that are objects of pure, disinterested contemplation, the chief criterion of the aesthetic experience for Schopenhauer. Their remoteness from mundane concerns means that Schopenhauer's geniuses often display maladaptive traits in more mundane concerns; in Schopenhauer's words, they fall into the mire while gazing at the stars.

In the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, genius is the ability to independently arrive at and understand concepts that would normally have to be taught by another person. In the Kant Dictionary (ISBN 0-631-17535-0), Howard Caygill talks of the essential character of "genius" for Kant being originality. This genius is a talent for producing ideas which can be described as non-imitative. Kant's discussion of the characteristics of genius is largely contained within the Critique of Judgement and was well received by the romantics of the early 19th century.

Associations

A high IQ society is an organization that limits membership to people who are within a certain high percentile of Intelligence quotient (IQ) test results, theoretically representing the most intelligent people in the world. High IQ societies typically accept a variety of standardized intelligence tests such as the Stanford-Binet test, WAIS-III (for adults) or WISC-IV (for children) and Cattell Culture Fair III test. Some conduct proprietary or alternative tests to determine membership eligibility.

Mensa is the largest, oldest, and best-known high-IQ society in the world, founded by Roland Berrill and Dr. Lancelot Ware in [[1946]. The organization restricts its membership to people with high testable IQs. Specifically, potential members must score within the top 2% (above the 98th percentile) of any approved standardized intelligence test. For example, the minimum accepted score on the Stanford-Binet is 132, while for the Cattell it is 148. In addition to encouraging social interaction among its members, the organization is also involved with programs for gifted children, literacy, and scholarships. The name comes from mensa, the Latin word for "table," and indicates that it is a round-table society of equals. Mensa is, formally, made up of national groups plus the umbrella organization Mensa International.

Conclusion

The Unification theory of education maintains that in order to nurture genius and prevent the problems discussed above, education that nurtures the child's gift must be balanced by including education of character and heart as well as education of citizenship.[3] With a balanced education, many more individuals would have the ability to develop their gifts and genius in a variety of areas. Education of character emphasizes development of the whole personality, including the faculties of intellect, emotion, and will in a balanced way, on the basis of heart (love). A person of character is altruistic, caring for their siblings, and ultimately contributing to the greater good of humankind. Education of citizenship refers to education of family and societal norms. A good citizen of the earth uses their gifts to improve the condition of humankind and the earth. Based on this balanced education, the gifted child can develop their greatest potential free from the social and emotional problems that result from the traditional unbalanced education.

Dabrowski's theory describes how human beings transform themselves from self-serving, conforming individuals to self-aware, self-directed persons who transcend their primitive natures and strive to "walk the moral talk." A Dabrowskian view of giftedness would require a revamping of the traditional definition; his theory is about authenticity, morality, becoming and being a good person; becoming truly human. Success in his definition is not material, nor is it related to academic achievement. Success rests in a life of service to others for the betterment of humankind.

Notable geniuses

A number of people who can be classified as geniuses have made notable contributions. The following is a small sample:

• Albert Einstein - physicist whose work on the theory of relativity, and specifically the equation E=mc² describing energy and matter equivalence, is well known to the general public to the extent that the name "Einstein" has become synonymous with great intelligence and genius.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bloom, Harold (2002). Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-52717-3. 
• Caygill, H. (2000). A Kant dictionary. The Blackwell philosopher dictionaries. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Reference. ISBN 0-631-17535-0
• Galenson, David W. (December 27, 2005). Old Masters and Young Geniuses : The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-12109-5. 
• Galton, Francis. (2006). Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences. Prometheus Books: London. ISBN 1591023580
• Gardner, Howard E. (May 1999). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465025091.
• James Gleick (September 29, 1992). Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman. Pantheon. ISBN 0-679-40836-3. 
• Gould, Stephen Jay (1991). The Mismeasure of Man, revised and expanded. W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-03972-2. 
• Mendaglio, Sal. (2002). Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration: Some implications for teachers of gifted students. SENG: Articles & Resources. Retrieved July 19, 2007.
• Percival, Matt. (2006). The Quest for Genius. Retrieved August 4, 2007.
• Mensa International. Retrieved August 4, 2007.
• Pickover, Clifford A. (May 1, 1998). Strange Brains and Genius: The Secret Lives of Eccentric Scientists and Madmen. Plenum Publishing Corporation. ISBN 0-306-45784-9. 
• Unification Thought Institute. Essentials of Unification Thought: Head-Wing Thought. Tokyo: UTI, 2002. Older text based upon Dr. Sang Hun Lee’s Lectures on Unification Thought.

External links

• Estimated IQs of the greatest geniuses. Retrieved July 31, 2007.
• Quotations on Genius. Retrieved July 31, 2007.
• Genius Hall. Retrieved July 31, 2007.
• Genius Definition. Retrieved July 31, 2007.nt]
• Brainteaser: Scientists Dissect Mystery of Genius. Retrieved July 31, 2007.

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