Studies of similar kids convince researchers that there is a large “aptitude” component to mathematical achievement, even at the high end.
This sentence seems strange, because aptitude isn’t the best choice of word. I know you are trying not to alienate people, but really if someone doesn’t accept the existence of innate intelligence with genetic causes, they shouldn’t be part of your target audience for this stuff. I would just go ahead and say “there is a large genetically determined component to mathematical achievement”.
Also, “even at the high end” should be replaced with “even amongst the most capable individuals”, or otherwise changed to be more precise.
This is a serious question because the creation of large numbers of exceptional scientists is an engineering project that we know in principle how to do.
This sentence seems awkward to me.
Perhaps: How rapidly would mathematics or AI progress if we could create hundreds of thousands of Terrence Tao’s? This is not an idle question, because in principle the creation of large numbers of exceptional scientists is a feasible engineering project.
Finally, it seems strange to me that your list of references is longer than the actual excerpt. Is anyone actually going to look at those? It reminds me of Jaynes in PT:TLoS criticising a phd student giving a presentation who spent all of his allotted time setting out his mathematical definitions and being outstandingly rigorous, and never got round to actually demonstrating his findings.
You also have a lot of references in parentheses, which make the piece frustrating to read—hopefully you’ll use little numbers instead.
Finally, it seems strange to me that your list of references is longer than the actual excerpt.
The list of references seems to also include the references for the previous (and perhaps also the following?) excerpts.
You also have a lot of references in parentheses, which make the piece frustrating to read—hopefully you’ll use little numbers instead.
This will depend entirely on the guidelines of the publication where they’ll submit this, but I’ll regardless note that I prefer parentheses in the text.
This sentence seems strange, because aptitude isn’t the best choice of word. I know you are trying not to alienate people, but really if someone doesn’t accept the existence of innate intelligence with genetic causes, they shouldn’t be part of your target audience for this stuff. I would just go ahead and say “there is a large genetically determined component to mathematical achievement”.
Also, “even at the high end” should be replaced with “even amongst the most capable individuals”, or otherwise changed to be more precise.
This sentence seems awkward to me.
Perhaps: How rapidly would mathematics or AI progress if we could create hundreds of thousands of Terrence Tao’s? This is not an idle question, because in principle the creation of large numbers of exceptional scientists is a feasible engineering project.
Finally, it seems strange to me that your list of references is longer than the actual excerpt. Is anyone actually going to look at those? It reminds me of Jaynes in PT:TLoS criticising a phd student giving a presentation who spent all of his allotted time setting out his mathematical definitions and being outstandingly rigorous, and never got round to actually demonstrating his findings.
You also have a lot of references in parentheses, which make the piece frustrating to read—hopefully you’ll use little numbers instead.
The list of references seems to also include the references for the previous (and perhaps also the following?) excerpts.
This will depend entirely on the guidelines of the publication where they’ll submit this, but I’ll regardless note that I prefer parentheses in the text.