What Makes a Genius?
- Episode aired Feb 17, 2010
IMDb RATING
7.0/10
50
YOUR RATING
Photos
Marcus du Sautoy
- Self - Presenter
- (as Prof Marcus du Sautoy)
Ognjen Amidzic
- Self - Amidzic Consulting
- (as Dr Ognjen Amidzic)
Arthur Benjamin
- Self - Harvey Mudd College
- (as Prof Arthur Benjamin)
Manuel Casanova
- Self - University of Louisville
- (as Prof Manuel Casanova)
Justin Halberda
- Self - Johns Hopkins University
- (as Prof Justin Halberda)
Annette Karmiloff-Smith
- Self - Birkbeck University of London
- (as Prof Annette Karmiloff-Smith)
Mark Lythgoe
- Self - University College London
- (as Dr Mark Lythgoe)
Elly Nedivi
- Self - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- (as Prof Elly Nedivi)
Adam Ockelford
- Self - Roehampton University
- (as Prof Adam Ockelford)
Walter Paulus
- Self - University of Göttingen
- (as Prof Walter Paulus)
Philip Shaw
- Self - National Institute of Health
- (as Prof Philip Shaw)
Storyline
Featured review
Terrible BBC doc made by a layman
Unfortunately the presenter is a mathematician not a psychometrician so often he directly tells us he is just guessing. He also doesn't seem able to understand even simple psychology testing, which is frankly unacceptable in such a very costly BBC doc. This doc sounds more like a personal layman Youtube video than a scientific study.
At the start there is a test where people have to tell how many dots of each color are shown on screen. When the math professor just does a bit above average on the test the conclusion is "This supports your theory that anyone can become a math professor". Well... no, that's not what that single test shows at all. Actually, that's a crazy statement. The test itself may not test math skills at all. It may test your visual perception of sums which may only be very loosely related to actual calculating skills/intelligence. They should have shown us how big a g loading the test has and what other traits it measures. You cannot really give a random test to one single math professor and conclude what ALWAYS happens in ALL cases or what NEVER happens. You would need to test 30 to 300 math professors to see any patterns here. And then replicate the study 10 times over in other settings and countries.
They then look into a mouse and how one single gene influences learning. It's not totally misleading, but it's quite wrong even so. It's an old layman fallacy about how single genes create intelligence or other traits. It's not really how intelligence works. It's thousands of genes interacting in various complicated ways. The mistake they make here is a silly one and I can't judge it harshly at all. It's misleading, but not much. It does reveal how little he actually understand about how the brain or even evolution works, of course you can't expect him to know this stuff as he has never studied it, but rather guesses and assumes.
This is where the doc finally shows us actual ideas from intelligence research... FINALLY. Here an expert explains how intelligence is heritable and predicts chess skills and other skills. Yet the presenter right away disputes this. He says that heritability of talent is "depressing" and that he doesn't believe this research as it's biased and ideological. Ignoring the fact that he himself has been very emotional about the idea of talent. He also never explains why he thinks all that IQ research is wrong. His statement is just: "it's popular among some people, but unconvincing". You also have to ask yourself why the weird color dot test he took proved that all can become math professors while the known IQ test is just "something some believe in". He could at least have taken an IQ test too, and then asked more experts about it. But either way he should have looked into it and not just ignored it outright.
The doc follows this up by stating that the brain can be trained to ANYTHING and that there is no limit to abilities. So anyone can just train to become great at anything. And even adults can train their brains in various ways. He's proposing not only that genius is developed in the childhood, but that it can be trained personally by anyone and that it basically has no connection to any heritable trait.
Anyhow, this is a doc about how a single math professor thinks human intelligence is unlimited and can be increased to any level and that everyone can become a genius. Of course, there is zero evidence given for any of his claims. But it's what he feels and says is true. Unfortunately, he doesn't actually mention any recognized studies on intelligence, but rather seeks out mostly a few obscure studies that are not even replicated. I'm not sure what the point of this doc is as we don't learn anything about geniuses or intelligence here. Yet the doc is not pointless. It does have that one 1 minute interview with a single actual expert on intelligence and does show a few more studies that could have been interesting if they actually replicated. But I assume he wasn't aware of the replication crisis and didn't really consider that much of this stuff didn't tell us anything about any real factor.
At the start there is a test where people have to tell how many dots of each color are shown on screen. When the math professor just does a bit above average on the test the conclusion is "This supports your theory that anyone can become a math professor". Well... no, that's not what that single test shows at all. Actually, that's a crazy statement. The test itself may not test math skills at all. It may test your visual perception of sums which may only be very loosely related to actual calculating skills/intelligence. They should have shown us how big a g loading the test has and what other traits it measures. You cannot really give a random test to one single math professor and conclude what ALWAYS happens in ALL cases or what NEVER happens. You would need to test 30 to 300 math professors to see any patterns here. And then replicate the study 10 times over in other settings and countries.
They then look into a mouse and how one single gene influences learning. It's not totally misleading, but it's quite wrong even so. It's an old layman fallacy about how single genes create intelligence or other traits. It's not really how intelligence works. It's thousands of genes interacting in various complicated ways. The mistake they make here is a silly one and I can't judge it harshly at all. It's misleading, but not much. It does reveal how little he actually understand about how the brain or even evolution works, of course you can't expect him to know this stuff as he has never studied it, but rather guesses and assumes.
This is where the doc finally shows us actual ideas from intelligence research... FINALLY. Here an expert explains how intelligence is heritable and predicts chess skills and other skills. Yet the presenter right away disputes this. He says that heritability of talent is "depressing" and that he doesn't believe this research as it's biased and ideological. Ignoring the fact that he himself has been very emotional about the idea of talent. He also never explains why he thinks all that IQ research is wrong. His statement is just: "it's popular among some people, but unconvincing". You also have to ask yourself why the weird color dot test he took proved that all can become math professors while the known IQ test is just "something some believe in". He could at least have taken an IQ test too, and then asked more experts about it. But either way he should have looked into it and not just ignored it outright.
The doc follows this up by stating that the brain can be trained to ANYTHING and that there is no limit to abilities. So anyone can just train to become great at anything. And even adults can train their brains in various ways. He's proposing not only that genius is developed in the childhood, but that it can be trained personally by anyone and that it basically has no connection to any heritable trait.
Anyhow, this is a doc about how a single math professor thinks human intelligence is unlimited and can be increased to any level and that everyone can become a genius. Of course, there is zero evidence given for any of his claims. But it's what he feels and says is true. Unfortunately, he doesn't actually mention any recognized studies on intelligence, but rather seeks out mostly a few obscure studies that are not even replicated. I'm not sure what the point of this doc is as we don't learn anything about geniuses or intelligence here. Yet the doc is not pointless. It does have that one 1 minute interview with a single actual expert on intelligence and does show a few more studies that could have been interesting if they actually replicated. But I assume he wasn't aware of the replication crisis and didn't really consider that much of this stuff didn't tell us anything about any real factor.
- JurijFedorov
- Jan 26, 2021
- Permalink
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