Thomas R. Verny is a clinical psychiatrist, academic, award-winning author, poet and public speaker. 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.
I recently saw Early Genius, a play by much-loved veteran Stratford Festival actor, Steve Ross. The comedy centres on four children under eight, each with a genius-level 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.
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. She argues that giftedness should not be thought of simply as possessing an unusually high IQ or an exceptional ability in 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). [1]
While people like Marie Curie, Mozart, or Picasso were conspicuously gifted as children, most gifted children do not rise to the level of geniuses. Some may become very successful but not geniuses.
The converse is also true. Many children who later in life reach genius status show little promise in their 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.
In search of the eureka factor
William Shakespeare received only the standard grammar-school education until his mid-teens, when he had to quit to help the family financially. He never attended university. Importantly, there is no historical evidence of extraordinary literary precocity in his childhood. Yet he became arguably the greatest playwright who ever lived.
Leonardo da Vinci received even less formal 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. Still, da Vinci became one of the greatest painters and most diverse scientific minds in history.
Giftedness and genius are not synonymous. Historically, both became enmeshed with IQ testing, but scientists now realize that this was a mistake. [2] Childhood giftedness may provide the raw material for genius, but it does not predict what the adult will ultimately do with 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. [3]
A child with an IQ of 160 is extraordinarily gifted, but we don’t automatically call that child a genius. Einstein is considered a genius not because someone measured his IQ but because he changed our understanding of space and time.
When Albert Einstein died in 1955, the pathologist who performed his autopsy removed his brain. What followed was perhaps the most extraordinary foraging for genius in three pounds of greyish, gelatinous tissue ever undertaken.
The original and most famous study was performed by neuroscientist Marian 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.
She was a professor of anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Diamond and colleagues compared samples of Einstein’s brain with those of 11 men. They reported that in the left Brodmann area 39, better known as the angular gyrus, Einstein had significantly more glial cells per neuron. Neuroscientists regard it as a hub where different kinds of information are integrated to create meaning. The authors cautiously stated that the difference might relate to increased metabolic activity associated with unusually complex neuronal 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. [5]
Dean Falk, distinguished research professor at Florida State University, and her team, analyzed 14 previously unpublished photographs of Einstein’s entire cerebral cortex. They compared his cortical anatomy with descriptions of 85 other human 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. [6] A few years later, this finding was supported by the research of Sandra F. Witelson, a neuroscientist at McMaster University in Hamilton. [7]
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. They interpreted this as suggesting unusually extensive interhemispheric connectivity. [8]
These studies examine one extraordinary individual after his death, often using small and imperfectly matched control samples. They cannot establish that Einstein’s anatomical peculiarities accounted for his genius.
Apart from the studies on Einstein’s brain, there is surprisingly little neuroscience that studies “genius” itself, for the obvious reason that the designation “genius” is generally retrospective. Hardly anyone is considered a genius in their lifetime. The strongest academic literature therefore comes from two overlapping areas: exceptional creativity and high intelligence.
I think the most relevant of these is a recent paper by scientists from Drexel University, Philadelphia. Twenty eminent creators, people with remarkable accomplishments in their fields, and 16 smart, well-educated individuals were asked to think of unusual uses for familiar objects. As they did so their brains were scanned with fMRI.
The authors concluded that exceptional creativity may depend on how effectively brain systems responsible for generating ideas and judging them work together. Highly creative people do not necessarily possess different brain machinery. They may be unusually good at co-ordinating two normally competing mental processes: letting the mind roam freely enough to produce unexpected ideas, while maintaining enough control to recognize which ideas are worth pursuing. [9]
However, this was a very small study, only 36 people, so it suggests a neurological difference associated with creative eminence; it does not establish that this brain pattern causes genius or exceptional creativity. This study and studies on Einstein’s brain are intriguing clues. At best, they point the way to future research into the neurobiology of genius.
In my pursuit of unlocking the mystery of what makes a genius I stumbled across The Geography of Genius, a book by Eric Weiner. The author demonstrates how creative genius flourished in specific places at specific times like Athens in 450 BC, Renaissance Florence, Vienna of 1900 and Silicon Valley in the present, to name a few. We learn of the importance for the growth of creativity by having the opportunity to engage in stimulating intellectual frisson with other like-minded friends, in a society that values the achievements especially in the arts and science. And that includes financial rewards. You cannot succeed and you certainly cannot become a genius on your own.
Even a solitary genius depends upon other people: teachers, patrons, publishers, institutions, audiences, rivals, and a culture prepared to recognize and value their contributions.
The Latin genius originally referred not to exceptional intelligence but to a guiding or generative spirit associated with a person. Only much later did the word migrate from a person having a genius to a person being a genius.
Popular culture has long cherished the image of the “mad genius,” brilliant but eccentric, emotionally unstable, socially unconventional, and hovering somewhere near the border between inspiration and lunacy. Science supports a small kernel of truth behind the stereotype, while proving that creativity and mental illness are not synonymous.
Many authorities report that highly creative scientists and artists tend to be open to experience, unconventional, self-confident, driven, ambitious and independent, while often being somewhat less conscientious in the conventional sense. [10, 3] Others associate artistic creativity with openness, imagination, perceptual sensitivity, fantasy, emotion and aesthetic engagement while high intellectual versatility is more strongly connected with scientific creativity. [11, 12]
It seems that some unconventional traits associated with creativity may help, but any serious mental disorder itself would interfere rather than further the creative process. [13]
“What allows genius to flower is not neurosis, but its opposite, ‘ego strength,’ meaning among other things ordinary, Sunday-school virtues such as tenacity and above all the ability to survive disappointment” wrote cultural critic and author Joan Acocella. [14].
AI friends and lovers: promise and peril
Consider the career of Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin. He chose to attend St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, partly because, as a teenager, he had played water polo against its team and made some friends there. While there, Fleming became an excellent shot, so his supervisor wanted to keep him at St Mary’s on its rifle team. Thus encouraged, Fleming stayed at St. Mary’s to study bacteriology.
Then came the famous accident. A mould contaminated one of his bacterial cultures. Plenty of scientists might simply have thrown the spoiled dish away. Fleming noticed something peculiar: Bacteria were not growing around the mould. He pursued the observation, and penicillin was born.
Observe that Fleming was talented, certainly, but people also liked him, admired him and wanted to keep him around. Doors opened. He was invited to enter. He entered.
Not all geniuses are like Fleming. Geniuses may not always be “nice” people or easy to get along with. They have their faults like the rest of us. But they have something that induces other people to take an interest in them. That “something” might be charm, confidence, usefulness, persuasiveness, excitement, or the extraordinary quality of the work itself.
For neuroscience and psychology, genius is an unusually difficult subject to quantify because the designation is subjective and often retrospective.
What we know for certain is that genius is not about psychometric tests, or brain architecture or creativity, though all these are contributing factors.
In the scientific field it is a sudden flash, sometimes referred to as a lightbulb moment. A connection is made that no one else ever made. Like Newton watching the apple fall.
Or it is the gradual development in a person with talent and personality, who patiently and often single-mindedly keeps perfecting their craft over time. A good example is Toni Morrison whose linguistic originality, psychological depth and treatment of history transformed American literature. She won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Life throws you a pass. Catching it shows you are gifted. Convert it to a touchdown and you enter the pantheon of geniuses. Giftedness is potential; genius is what you do with it.
Notes
- Subotnik, R. F., Olszewski-Kubilius, P., & Worrell, F. C. (2011). Rethinking giftedness and gifted education: A proposed direction forward based on psychological science. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 12(1), 3–54.
- Sternberg, R. J. (2020). The nature of intelligence and its development in childhood. Cambridge University Press.
- Simonton, D. K. (2022). Giftedness from the perspective of research on genius: Some precautionary implications. Gifted Education International, 38(3), 362–365.
- Diamond, M. C., Scheibel, A. B., Murphy, G. M., Jr., & Harvey, T. (1985). On the brain of a scientist: Albert Einstein. Experimental Neurology, 88(1), 198–204.
- Anderson, B., & Harvey, T. (1996). Alterations in cortical thickness and neuronal density in the frontal cortex of Albert Einstein. Neuroscience Letters, 210(3). 161–164.
- Falk, D., Lepore, F. E., & Noe, A. (2013). The cerebral cortex of Albert Einstein: A description and preliminary analysis of unpublished photographs. Brain, 136(4), 1304–1327.
- Witelson, S. F., Kigar, D. L., & Harvey, T. (1999). The exceptional brain of Albert Einstein. The Lancet, 353(9170), 2149–2153.
- Men, W., Falk, D., Sun, T., D., Zang, L., & Fan, M. (2014). The corpus callosum of Albert Einstein’s brain: Another clue to his high intelligence? Brain.
- Chrysikou, E. G., Jacial, C., Yaden, D. B., et al. (2020). Differences in brain activity patterns during creative idea generation between eminent and non-eminent thinkers. NeuroImage, 220, 117011.
- Feist, G. J. (1998). A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(4), 290–309.
- Kaufman, S. B., Quilty, L. C., Grazioplene, R. G., et al. (2016). Openness to experience and intellect differentially predict creative achievement in the arts and sciences. Journal of Personality, 84(2), 248–258.
- Cassandro, V. J., & Simonton, D. K. (2010). Versatility, openness to experience, and topical diversity in creative products: An exploratory historiometric analysis of scientists, philosophers, and writers. Journal of Creative Behavior, 44(1), 9–26.
- Acar, S., & Sen, S. (2013). A multilevel meta-analysis of the relationship between creativity and schizotypy. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 7(3), 214–228.
- Acocella, Joan (2008). Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays. Vintage.
- Gladwell, Malcolm (20020. The Tipping Point.Back Bay Books. New York.
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