Are geniuses born or made?

Made, says the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Performance emphatically.

A good summary of the arguments can be found in this New Scientist article (’How to be a genius’) which argues that anyone can be a genius, so long as certain key factors are in place.

Those factors are:

1. Having a supportive environment

2. Effort, and lots of it (approximately 5 times more than the average person in the field, or 10 years of patient application to that field)

3. Having a mentor

From the article it’s clear that most of the kids who grew up to be ‘geniuses’ didn’t show signs of exceptional talent early on - and this seems to mirror the experience of some geniuses, for example Einstein and Newton, who also did not show any exceptional signs of talent even after leaving university.

What does this mean for us professionals?

As Anders Ericsson, the editor of the book, puts it: ‘It’s funny, really. On one hand it’s encouraging: it makes me think that even the most ordinary among us should be careful about saying we can’t do great things, because people have proven again and again that most people can do something extraordinary if they’re willing to put in the exercise.

‘On the other hand, it’s a bit overwhelming to look at what these people have to do. They generally invest about five times as much time and effort to become great as an accomplished amateur does to become competent. It’s not something everyone’s up for.’

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene V

This touches on /?p=32" a theme we have already been exploring - that the time required to achieve competence and then mastery in a certain area - is considerably more than we at first may think.

Other interesting findings are as follows:

• There is no link between IQ and extreme talent / giftedness


• Focused study and practice builds expertise, which is in turn very specialised


• Our genetic ‘potential’ is only activated through environment and experience

Based onourexperience, we feel that there is something still missing - and that is that while genius isn’t innate - talents (the neural connections in the brain) - still are.

So as the article states, a grandmaster chessplayer’s eye for detail is very specific - and we believe that it is this ‘eye for detail’ or ‘observation’ which is innate - which in practised combination with other talents and natural abilities makes the chessmaster.

We’ll elaborate more on this topic in due course. In the meantime why not look at the definitions of talents / natural abilities at the Highlands site here