Gladwell on early- and late-blooming geniuses

Now that he has a book coming out on the subject of genius and high achievement, the New Yorker finally lets Malcolm Gladwell write about David Galenson's work on age and innovation. (A previous effort was Gladwell's first article to be rejected by The New Yorker.) For an overview of Galenson's work, check out my post from August.

The most interesting bit of Gladwell's piece is his discussion of the economics of the two different types of artist. The conceptual artist's talent is noticed and rewarded immediately. But conceptual innovators need more help to reach their full potential.

Sharie was Ben's wife. But she was also-to borrow a term from long ago-his patron. That word has a condescending edge to it today, because we think it far more appropriate for artists (and everyone else for that matter) to be supported by the marketplace. But the marketplace works only for people like Jonathan Safran Foer, whose art emerges, fully realized, at the beginning of their career, or Picasso, whose talent was so blindingly obvious that an art dealer offered him a hundred-and-fifty-franc-a-month stipend the minute he got to Paris, at age twenty. If you are the type of creative mind that starts without a plan, and has to experiment and learn by doing, you need someone to see you through the long and difficult time it takes for your art to reach its true level.

Gladwell discusses the article in a podcast and will be answering reader questions about it later in the week.

Smarts on the gridiron

Ben Fry analyzes the data from an intelligence test administered to all incoming NFL players and displays the results by position. Offensive players do better than defensive players on the test, although running backs score the lowest (wide receivers and cornerbacks also don't do well). As Michael Lewis suggested in The Blind Side, offensive tackles are the smartest players on the field, followed by the centers and then the quarterbacks.

Malcolm Gladwell talked about the Wonderlic test at the New Yorker Conference and judged it a poor indicator of future performance.

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.

Scientist hypothesizes that Ashkenazi Jews are more

Scientist hypothesizes that Ashkenazi Jews are more intelligent as a group because of natural selection. "Put these two things together--a correlation of intelligence and success, and a correlation of success and fecundity--and you have circumstances that favour the spread of genes that enhance intelligence."

The Flynn Effect: IQs are rising in the US

The Flynn Effect: IQs are rising in the US. "US test takers gained 17 IQ points between 1947 and 2001."

Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. You can be smarter than your friends in nine different ways.