Yeah, actually I know a joke about this
December 14, 2021 4:30 AM   Subscribe

A study finds that brain surgeons and rocket scientists are not necessarily more intelligent than the general population.

The result appears in the BMJ, a high-impact journal published by the British Medical Association. The original journal article is open-access and available here. The data were gathered through the Great British Intelligence Test. Of many possible previouslies about stereotypes surrounding ideas of "intelligence," this seems most in the comic spirit of the Mitchell and Webb sketch invoked in the study and article.
posted by sy (67 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
I for one plan to be much more selective about who I allow to operate on my brain from here on.
posted by biffa at 4:44 AM on December 14, 2021 [7 favorites]


Yeah, frankly that tracks.
posted by sciatrix at 4:48 AM on December 14, 2021 [6 favorites]


My friend is one of the few people in the world who does repairs on rockets, and I've always desperately tried to convince her to put rocket surgeon in her title. Alas, she won't.
posted by Jacen at 5:16 AM on December 14, 2021 [52 favorites]


In related news, I keep trying to persuade acquaintances that many people with doctorates aren't very smart. They just went to grad school because they couldn't function elsewhere, and hoped having a doctorate would at least be validating. Yes, there are exceptions, but I'd argue that's true in any field.
posted by Peach at 5:26 AM on December 14, 2021 [34 favorites]


I think we confuse the intellegence of pioneers in these fields (or any field) with the practitioners.
posted by jozifd at 5:26 AM on December 14, 2021 [14 favorites]


I'm an aerospace engineer who works on rockets. After being in this industry for 15 years now, my observations are:

People think this job is hard because the work required to get here is hard, specifically - the math that is needed to pass the college courses is incredibly advanced and non-intuitive. Also, the amount of education required (explicitly or not, I'll get to that in a bit) is more than the average job, even more than most other engineering jobs. The actual job itself is not hard. In fact, "aerospace engineer" is a broad enough term as to be meaningless. None of us call ourselves that. I'm a systems engineer or a test engineer, depending on the day. In the past, I've been a mechanical engineer, an avionics engineer, even a "multidisciplinary engineer."

The companies that hire can be very elitist. Certain places get a reputation for doing original, innovative work, and they want to keep their prestige by only hiring folks who have advanced degrees from MIT (and maybe Caltech, if we really have to). The proportion of people I currently work with who have PhDs from MIT is way out of whack compared to the general population.

However, this doesn't mean they're better or smarter than me! It's akin to the issues with our political system - we're only nominating judges who went to Yale because that's what we've always done. The folks at my company who are making hiring decisions went through the wringer at MIT, so of course the people they hire are going to have to do the same. My area of expertise, however, never seems to attract that kind of person so I get to work with all the screwballs who like to break shit.

Anyway, look at the categories they scored on: planning and reasoning, working memory, attention, and emotion processing abilities. I've gotten raises before because I've been in a room full of supposedly "smart" people who are shouting at each other and I was the only one who could remember (because I wrote it down!) that we made this decision six months ago, helpfully pointed it out, and ended the argument that otherwise would have stopped the project while we spent another six months renegotiating contracts. People I've worked with in the past (I love all my current coworkers, please don't fire me) have been some of the most well educated people on the planet and were also the whiniest, most irritable, least organized, most incomprehensible people I've ever met. Doesn't matter that you can solve this big major issue in your head if you can't explain it to your peers and then rally a team behind you to implement it.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:32 AM on December 14, 2021 [64 favorites]


I finally internalized this when I read that Ben Carson thought the pyramids were Joseph's granaries.

Okay, that's a snappy line. But why would it matter, or rather, why do I think it matters, and what does that matter? That story about the pyramids is a folk belief from at least medieval times, and I expect he picked it up in Sunday school and never put it down because he has no interest in history and, broadly speaking, no serious intellectual curiosity about extra-biblical explanations in general.

Did this affect his technical skill in surgery? It appears not. There are many MDs who are creationists; a doctor does not automatically make a scientist. But since I come from a humanist perspective and studied the liberal arts, this belief makes him look like a fool to me. And that would make me look like a fool to a lot of people, who would ask: how many brains have you fixed, Miss Egypt Lady?
posted by Countess Elena at 5:41 AM on December 14, 2021 [15 favorites]


As a neurologist who has worked with a fair few neurosurgeons in my time ... yeah. Also, coffee is hot, the sun rises in the east, and everybody poops.

Honestly, most of the doctors I know (including me) are just as dumb as everyone else. That's how we managed to lose control of medical practice to insurance company algorithms and how we put up with dysfunctional EMRs.

All brain surgeons have that (most of) the rest of us don't is a hefty dose of arrogance. You are going to be cutting into someone's skull and you think that will make them feel better than they did before. Arrogance is a prerequisite; I would say it's essential.

The great neurosurgeons, though, are the ones that are simultaneously arrogant and humble, the ones who know their bounds; the ones with a healthy respect for the pink stuff inside all our heads (pro-tip: "gray matter" is pinkish if the patient's alive. or as one of my senior residents once put it toward the end of a 72 hour weekend call, "brain likes blood.")
posted by basalganglia at 5:45 AM on December 14, 2021 [44 favorites]


I got rejected by a guy in favor of a doctor. When I cried and bemoaned the fact that she was “smarter than me,” my uncle comforted me by saying “doctors are just as full of shit as everyone else.” It helped.
posted by Melismata at 5:50 AM on December 14, 2021 [21 favorites]


Anyway, look at the categories they scored on: planning and reasoning, working memory, attention, and emotion processing abilities.

....oh for ...

Okay, I'm going to be That Person here who hasn't read the prompt, but did they in any way control for neurodivergence here? Like, did they check for ADHD or autism at all in any way that didn't involve just asking people if they had a diagnosis?

It's just that I know a lot of brain scientists, my postdoc in a lot of ways is about transitioning more fully into neuroscience, and academics generally are....

Well, this is a community built by and for neurodivergent people who, generationally speaking, mostly had no support or identification as children. And especially for the ADHD ones this uh. Yeah, that's about where I would expect to find a bunch of deficits in so called "twice exceptional" adults who are largely compensating for neurodivergence by pouring raw cognitive processing power into the system, totally unacknowledged or identified.

*rubs forehead* if we could identify our fucking disabilities as such enough to demand, say, administrative support a lot of things would be a lot less fucked up about academia, I tell you the fuck what.
posted by sciatrix at 6:04 AM on December 14, 2021 [23 favorites]


I believed for twenty years that men and women had a different number of ribs... Because it was presented as fact in Sunday school. I didn't really buy into the religious views even then, but I figured that it was just a story to explain a fact. But no.
posted by Jacen at 6:19 AM on December 14, 2021 [7 favorites]


All brain surgeons have that (most of) the rest of us don't is a hefty dose of arrogance. You are going to be cutting into someone's skull and you think that will make them feel better than they did before. Arrogance is a prerequisite; I would say it's essential.

This is what simultaneously scares and impresses me about surgeons in general. The stakes are so incredibly high--how do they cope with the unimaginable guilt of someone's life being so dependent on their performance and skills? I'd like to think that most surgeons do it through a combination of continued self-improvement, therapy, and introspection, but I also recognize that arrogance, overconfidence, and self-absorption are other ways one could "cope".
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:29 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


In related news, I keep trying to persuade acquaintances that many people with doctorates aren't very smart.

Well, they’re not necessarily inherently smart, but it’s not a perfect correlation. I know some dazzling geniuses with doctorates, as well as a couple of shockingly brilliant people who struggled to make it through secondary school.

I related a while ago to a friend of mine — a guy who got a Ph.D.and then an M.D. and then a second Ph.D. — my amusement over people trying to work out the year an ad was created by puzzling out the year from the prices listed and the haircuts of people in the ad.

I had pointed out in mild exasperation that it was an ad for an organization that existed for only a few years, and the ad further listed a date (“starting Monday October 5th” or something), so it would not be hard to pin down what year by checking to see what years October 5 fell on a Monday. He said he wouldn’t have thought of that approach. Dude, you spent 28 years in school and you hadn’t considered a calendar as a useful tool for working out a date?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:45 AM on December 14, 2021 [4 favorites]


Therapy and introspection for surgeons? Not often. But if somebody dies on your table or shortly thereafter from surgical complications, a functional system will put you through some aggressive M&M review.

It’s worth pointing out that this is a British study. The academic filtering process whereby one becomes a surgeon is quite different from that in the US, and less focused on meeting a (very high and potentially not necessary) bar of general intelligence and academic application. Also, the pay advantages that accrues to surgeons over the pay of other doctors, and the general populace, are much less, providing less incentive for the very smart to fight it out for med school admissions and surgery residencies.
posted by MattD at 6:46 AM on December 14, 2021 [6 favorites]


From the article: "It is also possible that the GBIT normative data might not represent true cognitive abilities of the general population as the test is based on self-selection rather than random sampling."

Why yes, it is certainly possible that people who choose to take a 30-minute online test are not representative of the general population (sound of forehead hitting keyboard).
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:56 AM on December 14, 2021 [11 favorites]


I am not a brain surgeon, but I have enough experience working around it that I can say that while it's hard, it's not as hard as most people think. At least in the sense of being intellectually demanding. There's a tremendous amount of manual skill required, or course, and it certainly requires a level of justified arrogance and emotional regulation, but a lot of what makes it hard is just knowing that the stakes are so high. Which isn't to say that there aren't some truly brilliant neurosurgeons, but being a competent neurosurgeon doesn't require brilliance.
posted by biogeo at 7:23 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


This is from the put-on-our-fun-hats Christmas edition of the BMJ. If I remember correctly, a previous year’s news included the observation that there’s never been a randomized controlled trial of whether parachutes save lives or not, which contained several anecdotes about people falling from airplanes and surviving.

I started grad school as basically this guy, and getting over that arrogance was important work for me. I meet a lot of smart people who haven’t done that work, but need to.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 7:24 AM on December 14, 2021 [8 favorites]


Surgeons need excellent fine motor skills, years of training and practice. Anyone capable of becoming a master woodworker or machinist could of been trained to do it. Change my view.
posted by interogative mood at 7:31 AM on December 14, 2021 [10 favorites]


Machinists and master woodworkers wouldn't be motivated to work the insane and actually brain damaging shifts doctors and surgeons regularly get scheduled for. Human beings usually have about eight hours of useful work in them on any given day. The brain needs regular, deep sleep, about 7.5 hours on average to clean the Central Nervous System. These two facts have very little relation to the realities of hospital schedules. Machinists are generally smart enough to join a union when conditions get like those in a hospital.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 7:42 AM on December 14, 2021 [9 favorites]


*rubs forehead* if we could identify our fucking disabilities as such enough to demand, say, administrative support a lot of things would be a lot less fucked up about academia, I tell you the fuck what.

[assistant vice associate provost]
But this support, which would improve the functioning of core missions of the university and where spending that first little bit would probably have huge returns, would cost money? Money I could instead spend on whatever dumb shit is this week's sTrATeGiC INiTIatIvE or hiring my friend's cousin's nephew in law, who is technically a golden retriever, as an associate assistant vice dean of utterly undefined student success?

Hmm. What if we put up a poster that says "We love neurodivergence!" instead?
[/avap]
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:47 AM on December 14, 2021 [9 favorites]


Can confirm, I know an actual brain surgeon from college, lifelong Republican. Early in covid he was planning on skipping the vaccine and using some antiviral drug if he got sick...
posted by Lyme Drop at 7:48 AM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]


This discussion is reminding me of the machismo that characterized early breast cancer surgeons, who, as Siddhartha Mukherjee described it, basically got into a competition to see who could remove the largest area of a patient's upper body without killing them.

They kept doing it for quite a while before anybody realized that spreading to neighbouring areas is not how cancer metastasizes.
posted by clawsoon at 8:22 AM on December 14, 2021


Did this affect his technical skill in surgery? It appears not. There are many MDs who are creationists; a doctor does not automatically make a scientist

This is an important difference between professions that focus on knowing what is already known with encyclopedic rigor and those that focus on interrogating the unknown.
posted by cubeb at 8:26 AM on December 14, 2021 [16 favorites]


difference between professions
There's also an important difference between expertise in one field and expertise in another, even when the fields are closely related. The classic example is Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling who decided Vitamin C was the answer to everything.
posted by Peach at 8:47 AM on December 14, 2021 [4 favorites]


Remember: what do you call the person who graduated last in their class at medical school?

Doctor.
posted by cheshyre at 8:52 AM on December 14, 2021 [4 favorites]


It definitely seems like surgery is much more like a trade as mentioned above. Physical coordination and skill plus confidence and care. The Dr. House stereotype of a doctor who solves mysteries that no one else can … *that’s* intelligence but I don’t think it is that common in doctors or especially surgeons.

I’m not saying we should respect surgeons less; we should respect plumbers and mechanics more.
posted by freecellwizard at 8:53 AM on December 14, 2021 [6 favorites]


There was a time when people thought lawyers were smart, too.
posted by HotToddy at 8:57 AM on December 14, 2021 [6 favorites]


Well haha there's an equal dose of ego boost and humble pie. I scored in the top 5% of population in half the categories in the GBIT and for much of the rest I'm below average - in some cases *well* below average.

So there you go, I'm both extremely smart and significantly impaired, and actually this makes complete sense because I do have an ADHD diagnosis. Sigh/yay.
posted by MiraK at 8:59 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


My thoughtful pal from first year Science is now a [mere] liver surgeon. He reckons the key trait for surgeons is not arrogance, or even confidence, but decisiveness.
posted by BobTheScientist at 9:05 AM on December 14, 2021 [4 favorites]


FTA: “It is also possible that other professions might deserve to be on that pedestal, and future work should aim to determine the most deserving group,” they said.

Oh, very droll, researchers. (Or at least, I hope they were joking!)
posted by MiraK at 9:06 AM on December 14, 2021 [4 favorites]


Clearly the group that researches which group is most intelligent is the most deserving group.

That was sarcasm.
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:20 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


In related news, I keep trying to persuade acquaintances that many people with doctorates aren't very smart.

Biology/machine learning PhD here (who works for a company that employs quite a few PhDs in a field unrelated to what they studied) - I think the main thing a PhD selects for is stubbornness, because there are plenty of times when most normal people would give up and do something else.
posted by kersplunk at 9:22 AM on December 14, 2021 [15 favorites]


selects for is stubbornness

This is important not just because working thru big/complex problems is aided by determination, but also because a training on other stuff while being stubborn exposes you to lots of general and specific hacks that you carry forward with you to new problems.

Ie, it's not just a personality trait, it's a toolbox.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 9:38 AM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]


I would bet my life savings that the most transcendently skilled brain surgeon can NOT execute a double Lutz. So there.
posted by BostonTerrier at 9:42 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


As someone who has a PhD and the word "astrophysics" on my business card and has worked on rocket projects. . . my response is: yeah. Duh! What did you expect?

There are specific things working scientists are unusually good at. (I don't know any surgeons.) Finding the flaws in bad data in a few seconds by looking at a plot is near the top. An intuitive understanding of real statistics including outliers is also up there. Those are really useful. Being unreasonably self confident when talking about things one doesn't have expertise in is sadly also among them. It's a lot harder to be a good tree pruner than it is to be a good astrophysicist.
posted by eotvos at 9:47 AM on December 14, 2021 [5 favorites]


We had a rocket scientist prof in university who taught us first year physics and each time he couldn’t work the overhead projector you bet we was all “well you don’t have to be a Rocket Scientist!”

Got a lot of mileage out of that one.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:52 AM on December 14, 2021


I have have worked with some neurosurgeons who were incredibly smart (one had a PhD in topology); then again there’s Ben Carson, so I guess it kind of averages out.
posted by TedW at 9:55 AM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


Well you see, what we're going to need to do is increase the genus of your cortical manifold...
posted by biogeo at 10:12 AM on December 14, 2021 [3 favorites]


I'm not a doctor, but I am a med student. The data on this are very clear. What you need to be a good surgeon is not raw intelligence, but lots and lots of practice. In the United States, neurosurgeons train for seven years AFTER medical school to become board certified.

Have I met surgeons who were not particularly bright? Yes. But I have never met a surgeon who could reasonably be described as lazy. It does not surprise me at all that persistence and resilience are more important in this domain than a score on an intelligence test.
posted by tom_r at 10:14 AM on December 14, 2021 [11 favorites]


Yeah, frankly that tracks.

Hey, this is brain science, not train engineering!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:17 AM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]


Speaking of arrogance and overconfidence, I love the idea that 30 years of school and however many years of actually doing rocket surgery are insufficient to identify someone as "smart," but the authors of this study can find the "smart" people with a test that takes a few hours.
posted by straight at 11:36 AM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]


This study is super deeply flawed. But also - I think very few people with a doctorate degree think that being "smart" is what got them through. It's mostly doggedness and the willingness to ignore everything but one tiny sliver of human knowledge, which frankly is not a bad thing to have in a neurosurgeon or rocket scientist.
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:01 PM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]


interogative mood: "Anyone capable of becoming a master woodworker or machinist could of been trained to do it. Change my view."

Can I use a drill?
posted by chavenet at 12:15 PM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


I work in a field that a lot of people consider "smart". I'm no surgeon or rocket scientist but it's enough to get that label. Maybe it's my imposter syndrome but I'm convinced I'm only smart enough to convince others that I'm actually smart enough to be considered smart. I'm really dumb as a box of rocks, in so, so many ways that aren't directly related to my profession.

Maybe it's a neurodivergent thing but I think intelligence is likely to be unevenly distributed within a single individual. I can program stuff, wow a client, come up with strategy, and still literally forget how the knots go to tie my shoes. I can also sit and stare a wall and think of pretty much nothing but the Green Acres theme song for much longer than should be considered reasonable or healthy. If that were considered intelligent, I'd win the intelligence Olympics.
posted by treepour at 12:16 PM on December 14, 2021 [6 favorites]


Can I use a drill?

Yes.
posted by basalganglia at 2:00 PM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]


Surgeons are more likely to be Republicans and psychiatrists are more likely to be Democrats, although it doesn't take a Musk or a Bezos to figure that out.
posted by kozad at 2:14 PM on December 14, 2021


"Well, actually..." said the aerospace engineer who runs diytrepanning.com
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:28 PM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


This study is super deeply flawed.

In its defense, as was noted above, this is the humorous Christmas edition of the BMJ. It's not intended to be taken very seriously.
posted by biogeo at 2:36 PM on December 14, 2021 [1 favorite]


Have you all seen the Mitchell and Webb sketch that was linked in the FPP? It's great. You know what's going to happen but it's still great. Even if you have seen it maybe see it again. Totally worth your time.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:50 PM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]


any portmanteau in a storm: "You know what's going to happen but it's still great."

Oh, well, it's not exactly brain surgery, is it?
posted by chavenet at 3:41 PM on December 14, 2021


A study finds that brain surgeons and rocket scientists are not necessarily more intelligent than the general population.

And rocketeers, as well: Lisa Nowak.
posted by cenoxo at 4:47 PM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]


"You know what's going to happen but it's still great."

Oh, well, it's not exactly brain
rocket surgery, is it?

FTFY
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:51 PM on December 14, 2021 [2 favorites]


Maybe it's a neurodivergent thing but I think intelligence is likely to be unevenly distributed within a single individual. I can program stuff, wow a client, come up with strategy, and still literally forget how the knots go to tie my shoes.

Most people who are extremely intelligent in one area average out to... well, average, overall. My verbal IQ is in the 99th percentile (as high as you can go), but my overall IQ is on the high end of average (but still average) with one index being particularly low. Also IQ testing doesn't measure motor or spatial skills well which I do much worse on. I do cognitive testing and it's extremely rare for someone to be very highly intelligent in more than two out of four indices. The only person I've ever met who scored highly in every area is my partner. Yet I'm the one getting a doctorate. IQ doesn't really represent what we think it does--

Oh we aren't talking about a real IQ test? Okay let me just sweep my cognitive testing minutiae rant under the rug here...
posted by brook horse at 6:59 PM on December 14, 2021 [6 favorites]


I have have worked with some neurosurgeons who were incredibly smart (one had a PhD in topology)

wait i literally have a phd in topology, how in the hell ass are mathematicians allowed to operate the trepanation station
posted by busted_crayons at 2:03 AM on December 15, 2021




I mean cutting is one of the few things topologists are forbidden to do
posted by biogeo at 4:54 AM on December 15, 2021 [4 favorites]


Favorite Onion Headline: “Suborbital Ballistics Engineer Not Exactly a Rocket Scientist.”
posted by whuppy at 10:00 AM on December 15, 2021 [3 favorites]


Favorite Seattle Times Headline:

Normal Weather Expected Soon
posted by y2karl at 10:16 AM on December 15, 2021


I mean, sure but the doctors and rocket scientists I've known tend to be very smart, very hardworking (ahem, workaholics) and very nerdy (a compliment, of course!)... and actually quite modest and kind if a bit socially awkward at times?

My random-but-related anecdote: I'm a single schoolteacher who dates a lot via the apps. I mean, at this point I feel like an expert of sorts when it comes to meeting new people in potentially awkward situations that involve a lot of BS to cover insecurities. Furthermore, I live in Washington, D.C., which is cool because it's very educated, progressive, and international so there are many appealing options for me! Unfortunately, it's also quite pretentious and I've been told by more than one person, "you're super smart and hot but your job title isn't impressive enough and your salary isn't high enough for me to consider a relationship." (Kindly, they still offered a hook up as a consolation prize, which I turned down since they were no prize themselves.) You know who's never ever made me feel stupid or lesser than because of my job? Physicians and physicists/engineers; instead we nerd out together and it's amazing.

So many people are so incredibly insecure about their social status, intelligence, income, and more. Experiencing the aforementioned bullshit has been a great remedy for dealing with my own self-esteem issues, which are maybe not totally fixed as you can tell from my humblebrags here. This is unfortunate because we really are all equal as humans, right?! Why do we feel a need to compare ourselves -- as if comparisons actually lift our self-confidence?! They don't, at least not long term. The fact that the BMJ published this is the most interesting thing to me: it seems everyone agrees its really about comedy, in that weird and wonderful British way. Or maybe not. Either way, it's a fun thing to discuss here on MetaFilter... "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." Ahem!
posted by smorgasbord at 3:29 PM on December 15, 2021 [5 favorites]


But did they test rocket surgeons?
posted by blue shadows at 8:25 PM on December 15, 2021


"Most people who are extremely intelligent in one area average out to... well, average, overall. My verbal IQ is in the 99th percentile (as high as you can go), but my overall IQ is on the high end of average (but still average) with one index being particularly low."

Yeah, I have extremely lopsided intelligence--good at writing and English but just plain stoopid in math (I suspect dyscalculia), which meant that I was stoopid overall in life, of course. You're worthless if you can't do math. That's how my SAT scores went. Tops in language, bottom in math. Schools were always trying to get me to be "well rounded" and I just could not round. I was in honors English and dummy math every year like a stereotypical dumb girl. I managed to get into a good college that at the time had very low math requirements and even I could do those, but obviously my career options have been limited AF and even as a lowly clerical worker I can't do most jobs because they now require finance and payroll and paying for travel arrangements, and I don't trust myself not to fuck up someone else's money.

I note that I have a job where I am supposedly dealing with a lot of smart people and so many of them are just so goddamned stupid linguistically I don't understand how anyone gave them degrees. I am extremely mad to get emails from say, a PhD who can barely write comprehensibly, someone with a law degree who misspells every third word, and someone who can't spell their own degree, and the degree was economics. Don't they have to pass a few English classes somewhere along the line? How come they are the ones who are worth something in the world and I'm just a dumb clerical worker? Right-oh, it's the math, probably.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:53 PM on December 15, 2021 [5 favorites]


good at writing and English but just plain stoopid in math ... Schools were always trying to get me to be "well rounded" and I just could not round.

ISWYDT
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:34 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]


I'm reminded of the adage that Isaac Asimov, among others, liked to quote, that an expert [in anything] is someone who knows more and more about less and less. The narrowness of specialization becomes a problem when, as discussed in this link about the history of that adage, the interdependence of areas of knowledge is overlooked:

The expert who concentrates on a limited field is useful, but if he loses sight of the interdependence of things he becomes a man who knows more and more about less and less. Of course we do not prefer the other extreme, the superficial person who every day knows less and less about more and more.

The trick is becoming an expert in a chosen field while still devoting some time and energy to learning in others. A balance. And often, out of that striving for balance, out of seeing or intuiting connections between sometimes seemingly unrelated fields, can come insights that are unique to that interdisciplinary spirit, which can inform and enrich one's field of specialization in ways that concentrating only on that field cannot.
posted by Philofacts at 10:14 PM on December 16, 2021


jenfullmoon, I sympathize, but I'd caution that since there are multiple types of intelligences (how many, I'm still not sure - a teacher cousin of mine recommends a book called "The Seven Intelligences"), being strong in some but not in others is not cause for calling oneself stoopid.

I'm very strong in verbal intelligence, perhaps because I read a lot and early, as a sickly kid, and came from a family of journalists and English majors (and my godfather, a gay Southern conservative old friend of my liberal parents, was a college English professor, whose ultimate praise was "You said that correctly!"), and it was reflected in my Verbal SAT (780), and I did fairly well in math (650), but never got past trigonometry, and I've hardly retained what I apparently knew well enough at 17 to get that score. I'd probably test a couple of hundred points lower now. (Also did a Biology elective test, since at one point I thought perhaps I wanted to go in that direction, and got a 690, but I ended up going to music school for a comp degree.) When I was getting my philosophy degree, the pure logic classes were the most difficult, because they presented problems in purely symbolic terms - but if the problems were illustrated with concrete examples, and as part of a narrative, then suddenly my verbal intelligence could be engaged and I'd get a better handle on them. These days, I'd have to say my math skills are just good enough to impersonate an accountant (which I did as a day job for a few years, thinking at the time, "People get degrees in this? This is basic high school math!"), but my eyes glaze over pretty quickly when some of my geekier friends start discussing higher math.

Speaking of those other intelligences:

In spatial intelligence, which is part of athletic skill, and of physical puzzle solving, my older brother was far better than I, while being dyslexic and poor in both English and math; and in emotional intelligence, there are many people who read others' feelings far better than I. So, when commenting that someone is smart, I have always in the back of my mind to ask "But in what way?"
posted by Philofacts at 10:45 PM on December 16, 2021 [1 favorite]


I have heard of multiple intelligences, but my whole life, nobody seemed to care much about me being good at English. It wasn't particularly valued other than getting me into "gifted" labeling, it was expected that a girl is good at that. Per the famous quote from The Westing Game, "It's not what you have that counts, it's what you don't have that counts." I was always hearing about how bad I was at math. What I didn't have is what was valued, important, counted.

You may be smart in other areas, but our society and employment usually only value certain ones. A lot of us can't work out how to have a life where what we are good at is valued and makes you enough to live on.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:41 AM on December 17, 2021 [2 favorites]


an expert [in anything] is someone who knows more and more about less and less

The rest of the quote is "until they know everything about nothing."
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:19 AM on December 17, 2021


I would bet my life savings that the most transcendently skilled brain surgeon can NOT execute a double Lutz.

Not in my operating room! Although if he or she could, one would think the cost of their malpractice insurance would preclude their ever lifting a scalpel again
posted by y2karl at 10:33 AM on January 8, 2022


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