[extropy-chat] Harvard president criticized over comments

[J. Andrew Rogers]

Damien Broderick wrote:
> The extraordinary rarity of great male mathematicians also makes me
wonder 
> if there's any point in training all those very ordinary male scientists.
> 
> No, hang on, there must be something wrong here.


I would note two things:

1.)  Really brilliant people are not brilliant because they were
trained.  You cannot be trained to be brilliant, as the very definition
 generally asserts abilities that are far beyond what can be obtained by
mere training.  And most of the really brilliant people I can think of
in history had little or unextraordinary training in the fields their
brilliance is noted in.

2.)  Math and science are only related insofar as science often uses
math.  Scientists and mathematicians have very different thought
processes.  


cheers,

j. andrew rogers