Is scientific genius a thing of the past?

[Evo]

Depends entirely on how you define "smart".

The way the person is using it

Simonton is quick to assert that the end of scientific genius doesn’t mean science is at a standstill or that scientists are no longer smart. In fact, he argues the opposite: scientists are probably more intelligent now, since they must master more theoretical work, more complicated methods, and more diverse disciplines.

he seems to be equating the amount of information they must work with to making them more intelligent, IMO. That's not my definition of intelligence, so, I suppose it comes down to what you believe intelligence to be. He throws out a lot of presumptions, but backs nothing up. I'd like to see him back himself up with some facts.

 

[DiracPool]

So you measure the amount of "genius" by how much "upheaval" the theory makes? That doesn't seem to be the criteria used in the article: "either by founding an entirely new field or by revolutionizing an already-existing discipline". By their standards, the creation of a theory like QFT was genius, while by your criteria, it is not so much.

All scientific theories or models, if you will, are actually invented constructions designed to try to imitate or facsimilize some aspect of nature, whether it is the concept of natural selection or of the orbital structure of a hydrogen atom. I think the central question here is what these models mean and/or what the utility of these models are. Homo ergaster was able to live comfortably on the planet for far longer than we have already and had no concept of how Legendre polynomials related to the orbital structure of electrons in the atom. Pre-Einstein societies lived just fine on Newtons mechanics as did the middle-ages people on pre-Galiliean physical understanding.

What do we gain in the modern age? A refinement, a refinement on our ability to model physical processes and therefore to manipulate our external surroundings in a more sophisticated manner. But what about understanding? Do we really understand more? Do we really understand more than that guy in Newton's time who said, give me the position and momentum of every particle in the universe and I will tell you what happens for the rest of eternity? Who was that guy, Voltaire?

In any case, the whole "the more you know the less you know" debate is well known. My argument is that progress in this day and age overemphasizes description rather than conception. The real breakthroughs in history were conceptual, common sense game changers like the apple falling from the tree is what make the moon go cross the sky, and that light, not time, is the universal constant. These are fundamental redirects in concept, and that I think is what characterizes what great advances achieve.

In the end, though, what will really satisfy the scientist and the layman alike will be a description that is, unlike what Michio Kaku likes to assert, NOT simply an equation one inch long that you can print on a t-shirt. It will end up being a STORY, a story of why things are the way the are (yes, WHY), and how they got to be that way. Descriptions and equations are great, but what the human soul really seeks, really craves, is a story.

 

[micromass]

But what about understanding? Do we really understand more? Do we really understand more than that guy in Newton's time who said, give me the position and momentum of every particle in the universe and I will tell you what happens for the rest of eternity?

We have the capability to go to the moon, and people in Newton's time did not.
We can send an object out of our solar system, people in Newton's time did not.
I can talk to somebody in America while being in Europe, people in Newton's time had to make a dangerous and long journey to do that.

What do you think makes all of this possible? It is because of scientific discoveries and understanding. So yes, we understand more.

 

[DiracPool]

There's a reason we don't have cosmologists making major breakthroughs in cancer research. They don't know anything about that area.

Well, yeah..Ok. My point was more of the idea of revolutionizing a field, which I think the topic of the thread is. Of course if you're baking a cake and I'm mixing the drinks I'm not going to make a better cake than you, but I may recognize when I come visit your station that somehow you got so used to using margarine because of the war rationing that we are now actually allowed to use butter since the war is over, etc.

In any case, I didn't come up with the outsider changes the game idea, that was Kuhn. He made this argument in Structures of scientific revolutions. My main point is not that it has to be someone outside a certain discipline per se that has to make the big breakthrough, it is more as I said in my earlier post that one has a certain WINDOW where they can make that breakthrough, a window whereby their conceptual understanding of a situation is chaotic enough that the attractor in the brain doesn't fall in easily to some pre-learned limit cycle solution. Does that make sense?

So, it doesn't have to be someone from another field, just someone who hasn't spent their careers learning only the status quo. Maybe Planck and a few others are exceptions, but Guys like Einstein, Dirac, and Heisenberg were young enough to keep those attractos chaotic, and guys like Newton and Galilleo had the benefit of not having a stringent scientific load to memorize before they came up with their great works.

 

[Drakkith]

All scientific theories or models, if you will, are actually invented constructions designed to try to imitate or facsimilize some aspect of nature, whether it is the concept of natural selection or of the orbital structure of a hydrogen atom. I think the central question here is what these models mean and/or what the utility of these models are.

We know that these models mean and we have such an overwhelming amount of evidence of the utility of them surrounding every civilized person on the planet that arguing that we don't know the utility of these models is absolutely ridiculous. All major theories are in active use, daily, by millions of people.

But what about understanding? Do we really understand more? Do we really understand more than that guy in Newton's time who said, give me the position and momentum of every particle in the universe and I will tell you what happens for the rest of eternity? Who was that guy, Voltaire?

I think I see the issue here. Your view of "understanding" is not like most people's here on PF. I cannot answer your question without knowing exactly what you mean by "understanding".

In any case, the whole "the more you know the less you know" debate is well known. My argument is that progress in this day and age overemphasizes description rather than conception.

That's because the overwhelming majority of science in todays era is working with the founding principals of a few theories. Further "conceptual" advancements appear to be MUCH more difficult and expensive to achieve than they used to be. This is to be expected when you have to build multi-billion dollar machines just to find out if a single particle really exists or not. I really see no basis for your argument.

In the end, though, what will really satisfy the scientist and the layman alike will be a description that is, unlike what Michio Kaku likes to assert, NOT simply an equation one inch long that you can print on a t-shirt. It will end up being a STORY, a story of why things are the way the are (yes, WHY), and how they got to be that way. Descriptions and equations are great, but what the human soul really seeks, really craves, is a story.

We can explain with some detail the evolution of the universe and the formation of our solar system and our planet with a degree of accuracy that only increases as time goes on. The whole process makes for one hell of a story...but it's going to take a while to tell, so go make a sandwich or something and come back.

 

[micromass]

Well, yeah..Ok. My point was more of the idea of revolutionizing a field, which I think the topic of the thread is. Of course if you're baking a cake and I'm mixing the drinks I'm not going to make a better cake than you, but I may recognize when I come visit your station that somehow you got so used to using margarine because of the war rationing that we are now actually allowed to use butter since the war is over, etc.

In any case, I didn't come up with the outsider changes the game idea, that was Kuhn. He made this argument in Structures of scientific revolutions. My main point is not that it has to be someone outside a certain discipline per se that has to make the big breakthrough, it is more as I said in my earlier post that one has a certain WINDOW where they can make that breakthrough, a window whereby their conceptual understanding of a situation is chaotic enough that the attractor in the brain doesn't fall in easily to some pre-learned limit cycle solution. Does that make sense?

So, it doesn't have to be someone from another field, just someone who hasn't spent their careers learning only the status quo. Maybe Planck and a few others are exceptions, but Guys like Einstein, Dirac, and Heisenberg were young enough to keep those attractos chaotic, and guys like Newton and Galilleo had the benefit of not having a stringent scientific load to memorize before they came up with their great works.

People like Einstein, Dirac and Heisenberg all had PhD's in physics. So they weren't outsiders. They knew extremely well what the "status quo" was.

You say that an outsider, like a neuroscientist, can make discoveries in physics. If this is true, then you must give examples. Because, as far as I know, practically all discoveries in physics were done by practicing physicists which were familiar with the field. I have never heard of a PhD in neuroscience (or similar) making discoveries in physics without taking out years to study the physics.

 

[Drakkith]

Well, yeah..Ok. My point was more of the idea of revolutionizing a field, which I think the topic of the thread is. Of course if you're baking a cake and I'm mixing the drinks I'm not going to make a better cake than you, but I may recognize when I come visit your station that somehow you got so used to using margarine because of the war rationing that we are now actually allowed to use butter since the war is over, etc.

Name me one major "conceptual breakthrough" that was the result of someone else coming in from another field that was completely unrelated.

In any case, I didn't come up with the outsider changes the game idea, that was Kuhn. He made this argument in Structures of scientific revolutions. My main point is not that it has to be someone outside a certain discipline per se that has to make the big breakthrough, it is more as I said in my earlier post that one has a certain WINDOW where they can make that breakthrough, a window whereby their conceptual understanding of a situation is chaotic enough that the attractor in the brain doesn't fall in easily to some pre-learned limit cycle solution. Does that make sense?

No, I have absolutely no idea what you mean. Every major breakthrough that I know of was the result of known inaccuracies, of known flaws, of known problems with current theory being worked out by people who knew about them precisely because they learned about them beforehand through their schooling or occupation.

So, it doesn't have to be someone from another field, just someone who hasn't spent their careers learning only the status quo. Maybe Planck and a few others are exceptions, but Guys like Einstein, Dirac, and Heisenberg were young enough to keep those attractos chaotic, and guys like Newton and Galilleo had the benefit of not having a stringent scientific load to memorize before they came up with their great works.

I don't think you've read enough about the history of QM or SR/GR. All three of those theories resulted from someone or some group of people working with known problems. I don't want to downplay their intelligence, but a great deal of the reason they solved the issue was that they were simply there at the forefront and could see exactly where and why current theories failed. The creaters of Quantum Mechanics were simply students in college when the first hints of quantum theory came to them from Plank, Einstein, and Bohr. Had they not been there then someone else would have worked the issues and probably developed QM as we know it today. It may have taken longer or shorter, but it would have gotten done.

 

[micromass]

Well, yeah..Ok. My point was more of the idea of revolutionizing a field, which I think the topic of the thread is. Of course if you're baking a cake and I'm mixing the drinks I'm not going to make a better cake than you, but I may recognize when I come visit your station that somehow you got so used to using margarine because of the war rationing that we are now actually allowed to use butter since the war is over, etc.

I think the analogy is flawed. The analogy would be better as follows:

Of course if you're building a house and I'm mixing the drinks I'm not going to make a better house than you, but I may recognize when I come visit your workplace that somehow you got so used to using cement because of the war rationing that we are now actually allowed to use butter since the war is over, etc.

 

[DiracPool]

I don't think you've read enough about the history of QM or SR/GR. All three of those theories resulted from someone or some group of people working with known problems. I don't want to downplay their intelligence, but a great deal of the reason they solved the issue was that they were simply there at the forefront and could see exactly where and why current theories failed. The creaters of Quantum Mechanics were simply students in college when the first hints of quantum theory came to them from Plank, Einstein, and Bohr. Had they not been there then someone else would have worked the issues and probably developed QM as we know it today. It may have taken longer or shorter, but it would have gotten done.

Yeah, I agree with this. But that brings up a related point I didn't really even consider...That, in addition to youthful ignorance creating a context for creative construction, circumstance can do the same thing. I mean, think of what Michelson and Morley did for relativity. Or what the blackbody work of Planck did for QM. I think your right on that note. In cognitive neurodynamics we call these order parameters imposed on brain networks to yield certain near-limit cycle solutions. It relates to Hakens "slaving principle," whereby nascent parameters imposed on the networks, typically in terms of particular excited nodes, enslave the individual elements of the system for the purpose of lowering the energy of the system into a limit cycle attractor. In this case, the M&M results and the blackbody results serve as the excited nodes, and the "accidental revolutionaries" like Einstein, Dirac, and Heisenberg serve as the units of the chaotic system "enslaved" to solve these problems simply because they happened to be at the right place at the right time? What do you think?

 

[micromass]

Yeah, I agree with this. But that brings up a related point I didn't really even consider...That, in addition to youthful ignorance creating a context for creative construction, circumstance can do the same thing. I mean, think of what Michelson and Morley did for relativity. Or what the blackbody work of Planck did for QM. I think your right on that note. In cognitive neurodynamics we call these order parameters imposed on brain networks to yield certain near-limit cycle solutions. It relates to Hakens "slaving principle," whereby nascent parameters imposed on the networks, typically in terms of particular excited nodes, enslave the individual elements of the system for the purpose of lowering the energy of the system into a limit cycle attractor. In this case, the M&M results and the blackbody results serve as the excited nodes, and the "accidental revolutionaries" like Einstein, Dirac, and Heisenberg serve as the units of the chaotic system "enslaved" to solve these problems simply because they happened to be at the right place at the right time? What do you think?

You still haven't given examples of outsiders making revolutionary discoveries in physics. And with outsiders, I mean: people with no rigorous training in physics.

 

[Drakkith]

Yeah, I agree with this. But that brings up a related point I didn't really even consider...That, in addition to youthful ignorance creating a context for creative construction, circumstance can do the same thing. I mean, think of what Michelson and Morley did for relativity. Or what the blackbody work of Planck did for QM. I think your right on that note. In cognitive neurodynamics we call these order parameters imposed on brain networks to yield certain near-limit cycle solutions. It relates to Hakens "slaving principle," whereby nascent parameters imposed on the networks, typically in terms of particular excited nodes, enslave the individual elements of the system for the purpose of lowering the energy of the system into a limit cycle attractor. In this case, the M&M results and the blackbody results serve as the excited nodes, and the "accidental revolutionaries" like Einstein, Dirac, and Heisenberg serve as the units of the chaotic system "enslaved" to solve these problems simply because they happened to be at the right place at the right time? What do you think?

I have no idea what any of this means nor do I know how it applies to either our discussion or real life.

 

[phion]

I mean: people with no rigorous training in physics.

Do you limit your definition of a "scientific genius" to only those considered as pioneers?

 

[micromass]

Do you limit your definition of a "scientific genius" to only those considered as pioneers?

Not at all.

 

[DiracPool]

each contributed to science in one of two major ways: either by founding an entirely new field or by revolutionizing an already-existing discipline.

When in doubt, go back to the OP question. I think the interesting question is twofold, one, what qualities of a model or concept qualify it as a "breakthrough" or "revolution," and, two, can we we identify any distinguishing quality of the individual who created this breakthrough that may yield some insight as to the origin of such a bifurcation in modeled thought?

That is, as I discussed above, is it the PERSON or is it the CIRCUMSTANCE that plays the larger role?

 

[AlephZero]

Do we really understand more than that guy in Newton's time who said, give me the position and momentum of every particle in the universe and I will tell you what happens for the rest of eternity? Who was that guy, Voltaire?

Yes, we do understand more than that. It seemed like a nice idea, until people like Poincare and Lyapunov demolished it, in the context of classsical mechanics and pure math.

And in the context of quantum mechanics, the statement isn't even false, but meaningless.

 

[phion]

I think the interesting question is twofold, one, what qualities of a model or concept qualify it as a "breakthrough" or "revolution," and, two, can we we identify any distinguishing quality of the individual who created this breakthrough that may yield some insight as to the origin of such a bifurcation in modeled thought?

I wouldn't consider all new ideas, which lead to some form of breakthrough, a success immediately. You need to consider the consequences, i.e, ethical and moral ramifications of this new thing subjected to evolved standards, and which can arguably be applied to all sciences. I'm not saying you need to go out and "re-invent the wheel" just to ask yourself, "was that the right thing to do?" for it's own sake, it's about those ah-hah! moments when you finally realize there's more to the idea than you thought possible because there's more than one way to think about the thing in question.

In the case of physics and mathematics, it simply tends to be more rare.

 

[brenan]

Well, yeah..Ok. My point was more of the idea of revolutionizing a field, which I think the topic of the thread is. Of course if you're baking a cake and I'm mixing the drinks I'm not going to make a better cake than you, ...

In any case, I didn't come up with the outsider changes the game idea, that was Kuhn.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Feynman do some important work in biology?
Effectively mixing a better drink.
Presumably that would satisfy the criteria.

 

[brenan]

Depends entirely on how you define "smart".

One interesting point I can offer here that may be relevant - geneticists seem to have pinpointed a genetic change in humam beings that seems to have taken place in a small percentage of the population around 5000 years ago. (around pyramid time)
The press called it the intelligence gene if I remember rightly.

Perhaps "smart" can be defined as when people do things in a significantly better way rather
than when they learn more or continue doing the same thing but better.

 

[dkotschessaa]

1) At that time, very few people were fortunate enough to go to universities and reach high education, and thus, very few people did something incredible and that's why they were very distinctive from others. But right now, hundreds, if not thousands or PhDs in Physics, Mathematics, and Sciences are given each year, and thus one must do something VERY incredible to be distinctive and to stand out from the crowd, but that doesn't rule out the fact that we do actually have more genius people than before.

2) Usually you won't know the genius ones until the end of their lives or after they die. If you ask someone at the time of Newton about Newton, Kepler, Galelio, etc, he won't have much to tell. I predict that after 100 years, people will look at contemporary scientists like Stephen Hawking, Peter Higgs, Michio Kaku, Leonard Susskind, and others the same way we look at Maxwell, Einstein, Hubble, and others

Regards!

I agree strongly, especially with #1. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 10 Einsteins at my university, and that's not a brag, as we're not even prestigious. (though we are big) I think genius is everywhere.

Hell, we probably have a few on PF!

-Dave K (not one of them)

 

[Martinaston]

IMO, the best way NOT to achieve something in science that is genius status is to think your going to do it by pursuing a "traditional" path to get you there, i.e., undergrad, grad, postdoc, etc. Ok, now I did what I'm supposed to do, and now it's my time to do my thing, and uhh, well, ummm...Hmmm? Ok, here I go...Uhhhh.

Yep, sorry Mr. "just got my PhD in physics", you have no original thoughts because your mind has been saturated and conditioned with what the psychologists (the real usung heros in this thread) call cognitive classical and operant conditioning. You are rewarded in undergrad by grades to wire your thought process with the status quo, and you are rewarded in grad school to kiss up to your senior professor and do his grunt work. You are punished if you do anything else. The end result...Your brain has been so conditioned to what everyone else can find in a standard textbook your opportunity to make any significant contribution much less a revolutionary advance is severely truncated, if not biologically impossible.

Thomas Kuhn made note of this in the 70's with his book as most of you know. It is typically the outsiders of the field that create the revolutions for the reasons I just stated. All of the scientific greats were iconoclasts, very few got there by following the traditional path.

Well said.

Yeah, I agree with this. But that brings up a related point I didn't really even consider...That, in addition to youthful ignorance creating a context for creative construction, circumstance can do the same thing. I mean, think of what Michelson and Morley did for relativity. Or what the blackbody work of Planck did for QM. I think your right on that note. In cognitive neurodynamics we call these order parameters imposed on brain networks to yield certain near-limit cycle solutions. It relates to Hakens "slaving principle," whereby nascent parameters imposed on the networks, typically in terms of particular excited nodes, enslave the individual elements of the system for the purpose of lowering the energy of the system into a limit cycle attractor. In this case, the M&M results and the blackbody results serve as the excited nodes, and the "accidental revolutionaries" like Einstein, Dirac, and Heisenberg serve as the units of the chaotic system "enslaved" to solve these problems simply because they happened to be at the right place at the right time? What do you think?

I'd have to agree with that as well, but i would have probably just used the one word "polymath".

People from interdisciplinary fields have the ability to see both sides of the coin and make a connection others would simply disregard. Something that's seldom seen due to the sheer amount of study required just for a single field these days.

It appears to me to be, the ability to stand back and take a different perspective on the situation that brings about a groundbreaking discovery.
If people want to call it a sign of genius then that's up to them, but from another perspective its nothing more than 1+1=2.

The general underlying ethos of most physics forums is the bated anticipation of a theory of everything. But as the name implies it has to encompass everything.

So to assume that the theory will come from a physicist is beggar belief.

As for scientific genius being a thing of the past ? Almost.