As usual, a couple of things came up at the same time that made even me think.
A kind and very perceptive colleague, Helen Lord, came up with several suggestions for improvements to the
O-VL website. The changes needed were obvious once she pointed them out - but we would never have come up with them. I sent her a thank you and said that this was genius. Her reply was phrased in a way that implied I was giving false praise, telling her something I did not believe.
The second event that made me think was watching a wonderful
documentary on Prof. Jenny Clack, one of the leading lights in the world of palaeontology. She is a working class girl with a very modest view of her own abilities who it seems would not have made the impact she has had it not been for the support of her husband. She made several intellectual leaps that turned conventional wisdom on its head. I will not spoil the video, which is well worth watching even if you have no interest in palaeontology. She was being declared a genius and was also quite surprised at this.
These two events made me wonder about the nature of intelligence and genius. Can someone be "intelligent" or a "genius"? Well, obviously not all the time and in every sphere. If that is the case then are they worthy of the labels given?
Could it be that these are spot features which are only relevant to a particular situation? Are these features absolute or relative to the the person making the observation?
If you come up with a solution to a specific problem faster than me I would claim that you are displaying a higher intelligence relative to me for that problem. If you are generally faster than me at solving problems then you are generally more intelligent than me. This is what makes teachers "special". Their education and experience allows them to find solutions more quickly than their students, making them obviously more intelligent than their charges (for those who don't know me, please note that my tongue is firmly in my cheek).
This argument can be expanded to the general population. If you generally come up with solutions faster than others then you are showing absolute intelligence. It is not now a matter of being compared to one other person.
A similar argument could be made for genius. Coming up with a solution I would never develop is genius relative to me. Helen showed genius relative to me.
Prof. Clack went a stage further. She came up with solutions none of the rest of the population were able to develop. This is absolute genius - a term already recognised in colloquial English.
If we accept these definitions, then both Helen and I were correct. Being an optimist, I saw her coming up with a solution that was beyond me and she was therefore showing genius relative to me. However, from her point of view, others may well have had similar ideas to hers, therefore her "genius" was not absolute.
All of this may have just a local focus - something of merely of interest to me. But, it has implications beyond a semantic debate. Society likes to put people in boxes, "You, girl, are intelligent whilst you, boy, are not!" as if these are immutable definitions. I am reminded of a phrase in the
Desiderata, "
even the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story". The discussion above looks at intelligence and genius as if they are general tools. Again, they are not. You might be very musical but have difficulty with languages. Both intelligence and genius are spot events, happening in a specific situation at a specific time. They may become aggregated over time to show a general pattern, but they are still spot activities. Are we in danger of closing down the benefits to the individual and society by putting someone in a box and closing the lid? It is in the interest of society to maximise its resources and allow everyone to have their spots of intelligence and genius.
If intelligence and genius are spot features then all of our students will display them, given the opportunity. Giving up on those with fewer spots is giving society no chance to benefit and the individual no chance at all.
Another consideration is the relationship between intelligence and genius. I suspect that the prevailing view would be that genius is just more of intelligence. However, many of those lauded as geniuses such as Albert Einstein and Jenny Clack, were not regarded as the most intelligent of their era. As the documentary shows, Prof. Clack was not highly regarded by anyone other than her husband. Yet she is the "genius" in her field of her generation. May I suggest a fuzzy formula:-
Genius = Intelligence + Education + Inspiration
Both Einstein and Clack had the willingness to continue when their "superiors" gave up. You need a background in a subject to develop ideas of genius. You need the ability to develop solutions to problems to develop ideas of genius and you need to give that spark room to ignite the fire of inspiration without being smothered by having the lid shut on it.
Please watch the documentary to see this in action and then consider how much potential our current system may have wasted.