Gifted babies do things sooner—that’s how early it shows up. Gifted children can learn to walk sooner, talk sooner, climb sooner, have rational thoughts sooner, etc. I’m not talking about marginally sooner. I’m talking about huge gaps like 1⁄3 sooner or 3 times sooner, and sometimes even 12 times sooner (William Sidis).
Gifted children tend to be bigger, not smaller—they develop faster. All these things would certainly give them an edge over the other children. They do grow up faster—otherwise what else describes child prodigies? They’ve reached an adult level of skill as a child. That does happen, you know.
Gifted people tend to be emotionally intense—and of course they may express that in any number of directions (sadness, happiness, anger) which lends itself to the idea that some portion of the gifted population may be easier to provoke to the point of aggression.
And there are different kinds of gifts, different sources of giftedness. Some gifted people only need three hours of sleep, for instance. I’ve met several bright people that require only three hours a night. That’s five extra hours every day. Imagine that all your days are 1⁄3 longer, and how much of an advantage it would be.
What are these “resources” you keep mentioning? It’s not like gifted children eat two elephants a week. They eat normal food.
Do you happen to remember the area of the book dealing with this theory?
All of your points may be true, but are not especially relevant. Philippe Rushton makes much hay in his lifecycle theory of how black kids grow up faster than white kids and much faster than East Asian kids, but that doesn’t mean they’re destined for genius any more than chimp infants growing up much faster than human infants means anything.
It’s not like gifted children eat two elephants a week. They eat normal food.
How do you know how much they eat? Have you weighed out their every meal and snack? Just a few hundred calories made the difference between life and death in Nazi concentration camps; how much more so in famines or droughts? Your intuitions from a fat Western First World environment are not very useful in this discussion.
I’ve met several bright people that require only three hours a night. That’s five extra hours every day. Imagine that all your days are 1⁄3 longer, and how much of an advantage it would be.
I have, actually, with modafinil. It’s not as impressive as one might think; if you weren’t being productive with your original waking hours, getting some more is not necessarily going to revolutionize your life. Further, we know that sleep deficits are one of those things that are easy to fool yourself about: the chronically sleep-derived are deluded about whether they are paying any mental price for the sleep deprivation.
There are different speeds at which people grow up, it’s not boolean. There are different levels of giftedness. Some are so gifted as to be called geniuses, some are more along the lines of talented, and there are plenty of people in between.
Food: Now that you’ve said “a few hundred calories makes a difference”, I see that this could be a potential setback for them. That was a good point. I don’t know whether they eat a bit more or less, though I know that they can experience reactive hypoglycemia if they don’t space and balance their meals properly to avoid blood sugar crashes.
Sleep: Gifted children are more likely to need either more or less sleep than average. So far, I’ve met a bunch of gifted people that need less sleep, and none that need more. If sleep were a survival factor, then the gifted people who need less of it would theoretically just be more populous than the ones who need more. Obviously, the longer sleepers theoretically would not prevent shorter sleepers from surviving better.
It’s not 100% clear to me whether brilliant people who sleep 3 hours a night experience sleep deprivation symptoms. However, when you’re looking at something as extreme as a 5 hour difference, you’d think the person would unravel very quickly, if they needed those 5 hours. If they’re paying a price for it, it’s certainly not nearly as bad as the price an ordinary person would pay. A normal person would probably devolve into schizophrenia after a couple weeks of that. But these guys seemed bright and rational.
Gifted babies do things sooner—that’s how early it shows up. Gifted children can learn to walk sooner, talk sooner, climb sooner, have rational thoughts sooner, etc. I’m not talking about marginally sooner. I’m talking about huge gaps like 1⁄3 sooner or 3 times sooner, and sometimes even 12 times sooner (William Sidis).
Einstein and Feynman didn’t start to talk until they were 3.
Gifted babies do things sooner—that’s how early it shows up. Gifted children can learn to walk sooner, talk sooner, climb sooner, have rational thoughts sooner, etc. I’m not talking about marginally sooner. I’m talking about huge gaps like 1⁄3 sooner or 3 times sooner, and sometimes even 12 times sooner (William Sidis).
Gifted children tend to be bigger, not smaller—they develop faster. All these things would certainly give them an edge over the other children. They do grow up faster—otherwise what else describes child prodigies? They’ve reached an adult level of skill as a child. That does happen, you know.
Gifted people tend to be emotionally intense—and of course they may express that in any number of directions (sadness, happiness, anger) which lends itself to the idea that some portion of the gifted population may be easier to provoke to the point of aggression.
And there are different kinds of gifts, different sources of giftedness. Some gifted people only need three hours of sleep, for instance. I’ve met several bright people that require only three hours a night. That’s five extra hours every day. Imagine that all your days are 1⁄3 longer, and how much of an advantage it would be.
What are these “resources” you keep mentioning? It’s not like gifted children eat two elephants a week. They eat normal food.
Do you happen to remember the area of the book dealing with this theory?
All of your points may be true, but are not especially relevant. Philippe Rushton makes much hay in his lifecycle theory of how black kids grow up faster than white kids and much faster than East Asian kids, but that doesn’t mean they’re destined for genius any more than chimp infants growing up much faster than human infants means anything.
Fats, protein, calories, time-investment, sleep. Feel free to look through http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics for those (the sleep one IIRC is from Ericsson).
How do you know how much they eat? Have you weighed out their every meal and snack? Just a few hundred calories made the difference between life and death in Nazi concentration camps; how much more so in famines or droughts? Your intuitions from a fat Western First World environment are not very useful in this discussion.
I have, actually, with modafinil. It’s not as impressive as one might think; if you weren’t being productive with your original waking hours, getting some more is not necessarily going to revolutionize your life. Further, we know that sleep deficits are one of those things that are easy to fool yourself about: the chronically sleep-derived are deluded about whether they are paying any mental price for the sleep deprivation.
There are different speeds at which people grow up, it’s not boolean. There are different levels of giftedness. Some are so gifted as to be called geniuses, some are more along the lines of talented, and there are plenty of people in between.
Food: Now that you’ve said “a few hundred calories makes a difference”, I see that this could be a potential setback for them. That was a good point. I don’t know whether they eat a bit more or less, though I know that they can experience reactive hypoglycemia if they don’t space and balance their meals properly to avoid blood sugar crashes.
Sleep: Gifted children are more likely to need either more or less sleep than average. So far, I’ve met a bunch of gifted people that need less sleep, and none that need more. If sleep were a survival factor, then the gifted people who need less of it would theoretically just be more populous than the ones who need more. Obviously, the longer sleepers theoretically would not prevent shorter sleepers from surviving better.
It’s not 100% clear to me whether brilliant people who sleep 3 hours a night experience sleep deprivation symptoms. However, when you’re looking at something as extreme as a 5 hour difference, you’d think the person would unravel very quickly, if they needed those 5 hours. If they’re paying a price for it, it’s certainly not nearly as bad as the price an ordinary person would pay. A normal person would probably devolve into schizophrenia after a couple weeks of that. But these guys seemed bright and rational.
Einstein and Feynman didn’t start to talk until they were 3.
Huh. I didn’t know that. My parents thought I was deaf until one day I started talking—in full and coherent sentences.
How common is that?
This old Language Log post discusses some fictional, real and apocryphal cases.
I had originally read that on the WIkipedia article about Feynman, which links to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_delay, which cites http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1999_06_24_newyorktimes.html (which I haven’t read yet, but I’m going to).
I couldn’t give a figure for it but it is a common enough occurrence that my Asperger’s Syndrome textbook notes it as a possible outcome.