See Inside
Are successful people primarily the beneficiaries of luck, timing and cultural legacy?
Genius is as genius does.
Editor's Note: This story was originally published with the title "Inside the Outliers"
Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com) and author of The Mind of the Market.
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27 Comments
Add CommentWhile Gladwell may underestimate the role of innate gifts, Sulloway greatly exaggerates it. Surely, it takes a great creative mind to become Mozart. However, if that creative mind were born into a low-class family, with no access to musical instruments, and forced to work in the mines from a young age, there would have been no Mozart. For a more powerful example, an African-American genius had greater potential to succeed during segregation than during slavery and even greater potential still post-integration. So, yes, creative people will seek opportunities, but the types of opportunities that can be found and whether those opportunities even exist depends greatly upon one's social standing, often inherited.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExtensive studies have shown that merit, as such, makes up only about 10% in income differences and less than 10% in wealth differences. This explains the "disappearance" of the prodigy when comparing school performance to adult performance. When moving from a meritocratic environment to the rather unmeritocratic "real" world, those who have social advantages most often continue to thrive while those without those advantages falter.
I agree with Melinda. Although geniuses may be born in every social class, it takes only the brightest, most creative and really hard-working person from a lower class to enter the portal into which any average person from a more socially privileged class can just walk in. This brings in the role for more mentors, people who can recognize the prodigality in a subject and allow them information, knowledge and guiding to hone their talents. But, truly success will ultimately lie in doing what you love the most, but smartly, efficiently and effectively. Perhaps, the measurement of success will then differ as well between a personal success and a more public success.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwo Thumbs Up!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGladwell took some interesting data and then completely overinterpretted them. His birth date hockey phenomenon at the beginning is probably largely true, but he failed to consider other factors such as patterns of birth defects and mental disease that also coincide with birth month, but have been speculated to be due to prenatal effects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn terms of race, culture and math, the single best way to check for the accuracy of his claim would be adoption studies. Do Asian babies, adopted into American nonrice culture excel at math? I'm sorry my fellow nonasians, but they do. Theorize however you may, but don't forget Occam's razor--the simplest solution is that they are born with a greater ability. Gladwell's propping up of this myth is a disservice to society moving forward and dealing sensibly with reality.
Thats why they're doing the research and you're not. They prove their ideas, whereas you're only using anecdotes. If you don't like their outcome, do your own research, don't just critique theirs without citing some evidence for your "beliefs." If you cannot, then all you have is religion: Belief, without evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPwyduddihudd, I don't think your criticism of Couchscientist is fair. Couchscientist offers genuine critique of the studies' methodology (factors not considered), offers a common-sense (though speculative) alternative, and then critiques the very idea that we know one way or the other. This isn't "belief without evidence" - it's discussion of the available evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I see it, the truth is that there probably are subtle aggregate genetic differences in abilities of various sorts between the races, the sexes, etc., just as there are undeniable differences in outward appearance. But anyone honest with themselves must admit that the dizzying array of obfiscating variables (societal bias, economic status, social status, cultural support systems, etc.) is so vast as to make it difficult if not largely impossible to quantify those inherent differences, whatever they are. I read Couchscientist to be saying that we shouldn't be propping up "myths" on this topic on either side of the debate; rather, we need to be open to all possibilities as we strive to create equal opportunity for all. Someone who fervently believes that all are born exactly equal in ability is just as dangerous as someone who fervently believes the contrary.
And then there is randomness. Despite innate ability or social factors, random factors exist over which we have little or no control. A real example: Bill Gates turned down IBM on their first approach, not having or able at that time to produce the software IBM wanted. It was only due to some very chance meetings that Gates re-connected with the company and knew of some code he could buy from another party and sell through that he became known as a "genius."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(See Leonard Mlodinow's excellent book, "The Drunkard's Walk)
This is NOT to put down Bill Gates, but just to point out that even with ability and social standing, the very randomness of life plays a large factor in the way things may turn out.
Thanks Tucker. Boy, Pwyd is really upset about this, do I detect a certain religiosity to his beliefs which is being challenged? You're right Pwd, I'm not writing an article here or doing research on success, but like all members of society I am affected by scientific research and journalistic ventures into it. Therefore, if it's ok with you, I will weigh in when I feel so inclined, on the appropriate forum--like the comments of an online article...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOutliers has broad appeal because it allows people to think that had things been different, they would be more successful--it wasn't their fault--their boss isn't smarter than them--etc. Whether or not that is true, if you base your belief in it on Gladwell's logic, you have the religion problem.
Also, Gladwell's explanation of the phenomenal success of Jews should leave one doubting as well. Again, I am sorry my fellow gentiles, but there is something more to their intelligence.
G. Cochran, J. Hardy, H. Harpending, Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence, Journal of Biosocial Science 38 (5), pp. 659–693 (2006).
http://homepage.mac.com/harpend/.Public/AshkenaziIQ.jbiosocsci.pdf
Regarding birth month and prenatal effects:
http://intraspec.ca/month_disease.php
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S016517810200183X
Regarding Asian adoption studies
Frydman, M., & Lynn, R. (1989). The intelligence of Korean children adopted in Belgium. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 1323–1325.
[1] Clark, E. A., & Hanisee, J. (1982). Intellectual and adaptive performance of Asian children in adoptive American settings. Developmental Psychology, 18, 595–599.
see Rushton, J.P. and Jensen, A.R. (2005). Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol. 11, No. 2, 235-294.] [also see Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Westport, CT: Praeger.]
My take on Gladwell's ideas about an Asian work ethic and math prowess is that it had nothing to do with genetics, but was specific to rural rice agriculture and the characters used to represent numbers. He didn't deny that people from other cultures, presumably including those genetically Asian who are adopted elsewhere, can be gifted at math and extremely hard workers. Rather, that it produced a vastly greater number of them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn fact, none of his examples downplay or elevate the innate abilities of the individuals, they simply serve to put those extraordinary achievers in a greater context than might have been previously thought.
One conclusion that doesn't need a study: There are untold numbers of humans born each year with great gifts and talents who have few or no opportunities to express them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow many Einsteins were born in Africa in the last hundred years? How many potential Nobel Prize winners were innocent victims of war, poverty and hunger? How many were women who could never attend school? They all had enormous potential. But they were unlucky enough to appear in their particular time and space.
The real answer to the talent-luck question is that we have the moral obligation to reduce the role of chance in success. We need all of the brain power, will power, and creativity we can get in order to survive as a species.
The fact that we have left so much, and so many, to chance may mean our ultimate downfall. Ultimately, the more compassion we have, the less chance will decide our fate.
They say that intelligence is the ability to adapt to changes in one's environment. Genius, on the other hand, is the ability to create the changes in our environment that the rest of us are forced to adapt to.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts just common sense that innate ability/weaknesses, environment and chance all play a big part in everyone's life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd that the road towards economic success is paved by all three about equally. Other measures of success seem to vary more. Like religious "success" (which I won't define) seems to be more about who you are and your environment than chance.
Dave Blanton, I really like your thought that "ultimately, the more compassion we have, the less chance will decide our fate."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGladwell's theories on tipping points and networks have pretty much been disproved. He is an engaging speaker and writer but his sweeping statements are based on anecdotes and exaggerations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI always get the impression he's like a mystic or gypsy and puts his hands over the crystal ball to tell people what they want to hear. But that's why everyone buys the books. Perhaps there's more to it, but like you're saying, most of it is exaggerated to give a spiritual confidence in knowledge of things that are simply not knowable in the way he wants to suggest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCouchscientist - would you mind expanding more on your comment about Jewish intelligence? You statement is as opaque as the subject of intelligence itself. If we are to use the standard IQ test as a benchmark then you'd have to assume that the Jewish population is too large for the average Jew to outperform the average Gentile. The sample sizes are too massive. So you really cannot expect a statistically significant difference between the average intelligence of Jews and Gentiles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow it may be possible for there to be more Jews on the fringes of the IQ bell curve. This is the argument for why there seem to be more male geniuses than female. But on average, IQ levels remain the same for males, females, Jews, and Gentiles.
Couchscientist - I did not notice the link in your post explaining Jewish intelligence. Although I am still skeptical, I'll read the study and let you know my thoughts. I apologize for my oversight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich factor is more crucial in determining success, our gene or the environmental stimulus? The debate has been going on for a long time and scientists seem to be working hard to prove the superiority of our genetic make-up over external factors. Until they can present to the world irrefutable evidences to support their theory, I won't buy it. I do think that both factors play an equally important role in one person life and his/her success. Thus, in order to help our children expand to their most potential, we need to do as much as we can to eliminate the environmental obstacles in our society.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with DaveBlanton when he writes, "The real answer to the talent-luck question is that we have the moral obligation to reduce the role of chance in success. We need all of the brain power, will power, and creativity we can get in order to survive as a species." Optimizing our society's output is the point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut how we achieve optimization depends on which of these premises is true:
Premise 1: There are no biological differences in cognitive abilities or proclivities between groups (gender, race, socio-economic, etc.). This is the acceptable position right now. Based on this premise, we can assume that any disparities in intellectual success between the groups are symptomatic of society's dysfunction. Resources are well spent to bring about a more equitable distribution, as equitable distribution is an indicator of optimization.
Premise 2: There are some biological differences. This makes you an ist for suggesting it as a possibility. If this is true, then resources are wasted by attempting to equalize results. Optimization still requires giving an opportunity to outliers from less successful groups, but efforts must be balanced against inhibiting the more successful group. If premise 2 is true, then affirmative action plans in universities and companies are probably a drag on our ability to best harness our "brain power, will power and creativity."
CouchScientist - Here is a NY Times article discussing the study on Jewish intelligence. Based on this controversial study (and as I stated in my first post), it can only be argued that Jewish intelligence is more likely to be on the fringes of an IQ bell curve. It does not effectively argue that Jewish intelligence is higher for the average person. Therefore I believe Premise 1 to be correct and any perceived differences in cognitive ability is the result of available resources to a particular society. This is the main hypothesis discussed by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel. He is mentioned in the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03gene.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
Perpetual, I commend your open-mindedness about the issue. I don't think the NY Times article does anything more than it could, which was to give two sides of the issue. It would be a political nightmare for the NY Times to come out on the side of genetics over nature. I don't have a cite for you, but the Economist did a better job around that same time, and actually went out on a limb in support of the theory. I think that the research shows that Ashkenazim Jews generally score 12-15 higher points on IQ tests and have a correspondingly higher percentage of members scoring over 140. I don't think Gladwell's garment industry theory is a good explanation for this, or their phenomenal success in law.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGates's other stroke of luck was that IBM were pessimistic on the number of PC's that would sell and thus concluded a licensing agreement rather than a sales agreement with DOS. Hence MS DOS. Do we really think that IBM did not have the muscle or choices to go an alternative route?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think Gladwell's book is designed for an audience that considers success more of a matter of personal characteristics and hard work. The role of luck or chance is generally given little weight because people generally prefer to believe they have more control over their lives than they actually do. So although some of Gladwell's examples of success need more consideration, I think he accomplishes his goal of informing the reader of other equally important variables in the formula of success.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIntelligence can obviously be a factor of success, but it is nearly impossible to quantify. Attempts to do so reduces something extremely complex into something that is convenient, easy to assess, but probably even easier to misinterpret. This is why I do not fully doubt the higher IQ scores of the Ashkenazim people as illustrated in Cochran's study. But again, I think the results are something that can be misinterpreted because of the reductive nature of the IQ test. The argument for their success is analogous to the success of black athletes compared to that of their white counterparts. Are black people more genetically predisposed for athletic prowess? I think Gladwell does a good job addressing these questions in this 1997 article from the New Yorker.
http://gladwell.com/1997/1997_05_19_a_sports.htm
No doubt luck plays a role in success, and no doubt cultural factors loom large. But Gladwell overplays the role of culture. Gladwell has a gift for starting off with logic, making a point, and discontinuing the logic. In the article you cited, he asserts that blacks are only more variable than whites, which accounts for their success at the top of athletics. But he does not show that they are average in the middle or more represented at the bottom. Neither does he refute what he stated earlier about narrower hips, longer legs, and more testosterone--those characteristics are true not only of outlying black athletes, but of the black population in general.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeyond that, if variability of genetics is such a black trait, why should they only dominate sports/positions that reward sprinting/jumping and brute strength (I don't buy into Tiger Woods as an example of golf dominance--easily explained as his mother's Asian X genes gave him spacial abilities and his father's only partly black genes gave him testosterone/muscle and confidence)? Why don't they dominate punting, kicking, pitching, quarterbacking? All cultural I guess would be his explanation. Or perhaps the genes tied to those don't vary as much. If you really want to think about how ridiculous his athletics argument is, substitute Asians for whites. How far down the list of sprinters would you go before you find an Asian? Perhaps they are just less variable than whites, billions of super-average and unvaried people. Or perhaps, they have even less testosterone than whites, even wider hips, and even shorter legs. Perhaps that combination means that blacks have a big advantage over them in those sports that most reward jumping ability and thick muscle.
Even if Gladwell were right about variability being the factor in black athletic success, Jews would be different as the studies indicates that the average Ashk is one half to a full standard deviation higher than the average gentile. That incredible baseline means that they produce a sick amount of outlying 140's. If the average Jewish immigrant was significantly smarter than the average non-Jewish immigrant, perhaps this better explains their success at entrepreneuring in the garment industry and why their children went on to such success.
Arguing against IQ tests as an indicator of intelligence is as good as arguing that intelligence doesn't exist, as it is our best indicator of intelligence at this stage in history.
That's an interesting point on why other sports are not more dominated by a race with such supposed genetic variability. There are obviously some flaws with the genetic variability argument that I had not considered. But arguing against IQ testing is in no way the same as arguing against the existence of intelligence itself. Obviously intelligence exists. I'm just saying that it's extremely complex and occurs in various forms. It would be like only having the bench press to compare strength. Arguing against the bench press isn't tantamount to arguing against the existence of strength - as your logic would suggest. But intelligence, like strength, occurs in various forms and I feel you have to take that into consideration when conclusions are made based on such a narrow assessment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn a side note - Cochran also did a study in 1992 that proposed homosexuality is an infectious disease. I realize that has nothing to do with our discussion, but this guy has certainly lost some credibility with me.
See list of Nobel Prizes in Economics. No asian except american citizen Amartya Sen. Where are the asian math geniuses?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Economics
People should also see the list of other nobel prizes.
There is nothing wrong with this article.
"When experts exhibit their superior performance in public their behavior looks so effortless and natural that we are tempted to attribute it to special talents. Although a certain amount of knowledge and training seems necessary, the role of acquired skill for the highest levels of achievement has traditionally been minimized. However, when scientists began measuring the experts' supposedly superior powers of speed, memory and intelligence with psychometric tests, no general superiority was found --the demonstrated superiority was domain specific. For example, the superiority of the chess experts' memory was constrained to regular chess positions and did not generalize to other types of materials (Djakow, Petrowski & Rudik, 1927). Not even IQ could distinguish the best among chessplayers (Doll & Mayr, 1987) nor the most successful and creative among artists and scientists (Taylor, 1975). In a recent review, Ericsson and Lehmann (1996) found that (1) measures of general basic capacities do not predict success in a domain, (2) the superior performance of experts is often very domain specific and transfer outside their narrow area of expertise is surprisingly limited and (3) systematic differences between experts and less proficient individuals nearly always reflect attributes acquired by the experts during their lengthy training." I found this on the web as I am becoming an expert on the cut and paste function of the computer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this