God given gift or just practice?

markbarendt · Oct 8, 2014

Ken Nadvornick said:
Holy crap...

Would that the rest of us all here could do as much during our lunch breaks, instead of just surfing APUG...

Ken

First, what he did "at lunch" was built on the foundation of many years of study/work, many years of gathering the pieces of the puzzles he put together. His patent office time may have simply provided "the break" he needed to put the pieces together rather than just gather more. Sometimes one must metaphorically back away from ones work a bit to get perspective. Not to escape the subject or the work but to be able to see the forest rather than just the trees.

Second, he made a choice to stick with the questions and "ignore APUG" or whatever the contemporary equivalent was. He was interested enough in his subject to stick to the work needed even while making a living "elsewhere".

On a more photographic note for me Ansel Adams is a very inspiring person, but it's not about his photographic/artistic prowess, many people have matched his technical quality and taken photos as good; for me it is for his business acumen. Similarly to Adams, Steve Jobs put a variety of things together to make a coherent whole, albeit on a slightly larger scale.

lxdude · Oct 8, 2014

NB23 said:
Yawn.

So its unimportant to you that your own cited source serves to refute your claim. You now have no credibility.

The einstein that we all love, the guy making a funny face with his tongue out and a cute meme attached to it is nothing else then a marketing product. We then grow with the preconceived idea about how funny and crazy he was and yet how accessible and smart he was. The tre story, however, is another thing. His wife was behind him for a lot if "his" findings. That's all i will tell you.
You can make a search for yourself. But go to the sources, don't just rely on western medias, the same ones that created Edison into a genious while he was nothing more then a crook versus tesla, if you know what i mean.

Just as hcb has had a lot of pictures with his name on it that were actually taken by a few photojournalists working with him, under his apprenticeship.

Yes, those are true stories.

Well, they're stories. You've made no attempt to prove them, so that's all they are. You make a claim, show credible proof. It's your responsibility to substantiate it if you you want it to be anything more than a story you heard somewhere and have repeated. I'm not going to spend my time and effort fact-checking your statements.

Bill Burk · Oct 8, 2014

NB23 has credibility, as a photographer with Talent.

But I don't know about Tesla. I think our collective brains would have become fried by man-made radiation if his Electricity through the Airwaves had become the reality instead of Edison's copper wire network.

Ken Nadvornick · Oct 9, 2014

Bill Burk said:
I had no idea of that. I do think that working as a clerk in a patent office, might have exposed him to so many ideas that he learned to appreciate ideas.

As an exercise in youthful humility the baby physics majors at a well-known undergraduate university were tasked with reading Einstein's four miracle papers. Not for reports. Not for research. Not for grades. Not even with the expectation that there would be any understanding of the presented topics at all.

Just as an exercise in wide-eyed astonishment, respect, and overpowering humility at the scope of what had been accomplished.

Trust me when I say that those four papers, and the intellectual tour de force they represented, were not the result of simply looking at endless better mouse traps eight hours a day for 27½ weeks.

It's quite fashionable while watching NBA basketball games on television to become frustrated when an otherwise reliable player misses what the viewer thinks should be an easy shot. "That's terrible!" followed by "You suck!" are the shouts at the screen. "I can pull on those shorts and do better than that!" And around the room heads nod vigorously in affirmation.

The next time you attend an NBA game in person, borrow someone's ticket at halftime and walk all the way down and actually stand under the basket while the teams warm up for the second half. Don't say a word or utter a sound. Just stand there in spine-tingling awe at what you are seeing. It's almost unrecognizable from what you thought you were seeing on the television screen. It's shockingly off the charts. And it's only warm-ups.

Then, as the realization sinks in of just how many light-years removed those freaks-of-nature guys are from middle-of-the-bell-curve guys like usand the opponents we bragged about facing in our high school varsity daysyou will only just begin to hear an echo of what it was like intellectually to read through those four miracle year papers.

Ken

Ken Nadvornick · Oct 9, 2014

markbarendt said:
First, what he did "at lunch" was built on the foundation of many years of study/work, many years of gathering the pieces of the puzzles he put together. His patent office time may have simply provided "the break" he needed to put the pieces together rather than just gather more. Sometimes one must metaphorically back away from ones work a bit to get perspective. Not to escape the subject or the work but to be able to see the forest rather than just the trees.

Second, he made a choice to stick with the questions and "ignore APUG" or whatever the contemporary equivalent was. He was interested enough in his subject to stick to the work needed even while making a living "elsewhere".

I'm not sure I'd want to tackle the task of publicly attempting to dilute the accomplishments of Albert Einstein, especially during the Annus Mirabilis period in question. Were it me, I might take a pass on that. I don't think I could "pull on his shorts and do better."

Which, of course, was exactly the lesson in humility the professor who assigned the reading of Einstein's papers to the baby physicists had intended to teach. Which it did. Loud and clear.

Perhaps you should also consider giving that exercise a try as well before going too much further?

Ken

Bill Burk · Oct 9, 2014

My analogy of Einstein's patent office work contributing to his ideas, was as if a photographer were to take an assignment as photographic archives manager at a busy museum. I'm suggesting the environment was conducive to the specific kind of creativity he was engaged in. I think his day job kept the wheels turning. Though I could be wrong, it could have been so dreadfully boring his mind was free.

I still don't know how he could be considered to have such a low IQ, who came up with that figure of 160?

Ken Nadvornick · Oct 9, 2014

Bill Burk said:
Though I could be wrong, it could have been so dreadfully boring his mind was free.

Don't remember the exact reference, but I do seem to recall he acknowledged this very fact in an interview later in life.

[Edit: Thinking further, I believe this interview response may have been recounted in the Walter Isaacson biography Einstein: His Life and Universe.]

Bill Burk said:
I still don't know how he could be considered to have such a low IQ, who came up with that figure of 160?

Apparently he never took an official test, so the consensus is just that. Here's one of many sources that use that figure:

Estimated IQs of Famous Geniuses

Note the observation that "A normal IQ, or intelligence quotient, ranges from 85 to 115 according to the Stanford-Binet test. Only approximately 1% of all the people in the world have an IQ higher than 135." So a score of 160 is indeed very high.

I also found this snippet to be particularly interesting, not least because it again reinforces the widely accepted concept that individual potential as a function of intelligence is indeed a continuum where everyone is different. But also because the range of values by category was very surprising to me.

"Cox also found that different fields have quite widely varying average IQs for their acknowledged leading geniuses. She gives the following figures (the number in brackets is the number in the sample considered): Philosophers (22) average IQ 173; Scientists (39) 164; Fiction writers (53) 163; Statesmen (43) 159; Musicians (11) 153; Artists (13) 150; Soldiers (27) 133."

Ken

markbarendt · Oct 9, 2014

Ken Nadvornick said:
I'm not sure I'd want to tackle the task of publicly attempting to dilute the accomplishments of Albert Einstein, especially during the Annus Mirabilis period in question. Were it me, I might take a pass on that. I don't think I could "pull on his shorts and do better."

I am making no attempt to disparage Einstein's accomplishments. I am also making no attempt to deify him. What I am suggesting is that is that those accomplishments were not done in a vacuum, they were not a gift from god, they were instead built atop a very large foundation of knowledge. Human understanding and technology had reached a point where Einstein could take the next steps.

I am suggesting that with the right interest, support, resources, work, dedication, circumstances, time, and training we can each do great things.

Imagine for a moment the wonder of the people around the person who saw the first bow and arrow work, or of the first person to figure out how to "carry fire" along with themselves, or of seeing the first printing press work. Were their makers any less important to human history?

I truly believe that someone would have figured these things out even if Gutenberg or Einstein hadn't.

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 9, 2014

jnanian said:
thomas

plenty of people help the less fortunate. these people are not geniuses
but regular people ... and plenty of people help youngsters with their math
every night if they have school aged children.

while i think it is nice that einstein gave-back, one doesn't need to be a genius to give back
one just has to be willing to be less of an egoist and give something of themselves.

Of course! But don't you think it's great when people as influential as Einstein sets a good example?

Ken Nadvornick · Oct 9, 2014

markbarendt said:
I am making no attempt to disparage Einstein's accomplishments. I am also making no attempt to deify him. What I am suggesting is that is that those accomplishments were not done in a vacuum, they were not a gift from god, they were instead built atop a very large foundation of knowledge. Human understanding and technology had reached a point where Einstein could take the next steps.

I am suggesting that with the right interest, support, resources, work, dedication, circumstances, time, and training we can each do great things.

Imagine for a moment the wonder of the people around the person who saw the first bow and arrow work, or of the first person to figure out how to "carry fire" along with themselves, or of seeing the first printing press work. Were their makers any less important to human history?

I truly believe that someone would have figured these things out even if Gutenberg or Einstein hadn't.

My participation in this discussion is coming perilously close to that inflection point where the biologist or demographer is forced to simply smile back at the microphone. If I take this much further it's going to require a level of intellectual compartmentalization that I don't think many of the other readers here possess. That compartmentalization is made possible by humility. And that humility is exactly what the Einstein reading assignment was intended to foster.

One can't do Science, another term for seeking Truth, without possessing that quality of humility. Having it allows one to look at the data (facts) squarely in the face without prejudice. It allows one to see and listen to and act upon what the data is desperately trying to tell you. Even when that message being screamed by the data points right back at you.

When Neil deGrasse Tyson said "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it" that wasn't merely a clever retort. He was referring precisely to the application of humility when in the presence of facts.

And in the case of Einstein's obvious intellectual gifts that far exceed my own (there's that humility in action), I'm not prepared to allow my ego to overrule a century plus of expert consensus regarding the reality of their existence, just because some APUG members want to believe that anyone coulda' done dat stuff.

So it's time for me to quietly smile at the microphone and just allow people to believe whatever makes them the most comfortable, regardless of what the data actually says.

Ken

Dinesh · Oct 9, 2014

markbarendt said:
I am suggesting that with the right interest, support, resources, work, dedication, circumstances, time, and training we can each do great things.

Great things, yes.

Game changing scientific breakthroughs, not so sure.

Truzi · Oct 9, 2014

Read this page:
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqbasics.aspx
and this:
http://wps.prenhall.com/ca_ph_wade_psychology_2/46/11889/3043656.cw/content/index.html

Focus on standard deviations and standard distributions.

removed account4 · Oct 9, 2014

Thomas Bertilsson said:
Of course! But don't you think it's great when people as influential as Einstein sets a good example?

i see what you are saying and yes that was nice of him, but it is probably more important when non influential people set a good example
because they are just like everyone else. what kind of world would we live in
if only "the greats/ the geniuses" set a good example and everyone else just sat around and watched.
my kids would never get the help they need i just waited for some sort of genius to help with their math ( science, language, english history, music &c ) homework.
and this website ... if no one but geniuses were able to or offer "unfortunates" help and advice ...
this place would be dead since there are very few geniuses here, last i heard it was 1 genius in the whole member/user roster

i look forward to that day, i'll change my signature ...
"sorry i can't help you im not a genius"

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 9, 2014

John,

The world is full of 'good examples'. I simply wanted to commend a person who was in a situation where a lot of people looked up to him (a lot of people still do). For them to set a good example for others to follow can only be a good thing.

That does not at all negate the importance of other people doing it too.

jnanian said:
i see what you are saying and yes that was nice of him, but it is probably more important when non influential people set a good example
because they are just like everyone else. what kind of world would we live in
if only "the greats/ the geniuses" set a good example and everyone else just sat around and watched.
my kids would never get the help they need i just waited for some sort of genius to help with their math ( science, language, english history, music &c ) homework.
and this website ... if no one but geniuses were able to or offer "unfortunates" help and advice ...
this place would be dead since there are very few geniuses here, last i heard it was 1 genius in the whole member/user roster

i look forward to that day, i'll change my signature ...
"sorry i can't help you im not a genius"

PKM-25 · Oct 9, 2014

Some people have a deeply rooted raw talent for the arts, music, etc. so they quickly get better as they engage in what makes them unique and rise well above the masses.

Other people may work exceptionally hard at the same pursuit and may never reach that "wow" level of creative output. That is just the way the world has worked and always should, otherwise we would never get to look up to and celebrate truly exceptional talent.

PKM-25 · Oct 9, 2014

cliveh said:
Interesting replies so far, but I still think that with regard to any skill, practice, practice and more practice will reward more than a so called god given gift.

And you would be wrong. The person without the deeply rooted raw talent will still not achieve what the person with raw talent will, it truly is in them in a manner most can not understand. It's called genius and it absolutely applies to photography as much as any other arts.

removed account4 · Oct 9, 2014

Thomas Bertilsson said:
John,

The world is full of 'good examples'. I simply wanted to commend a person who was in a situation where a lot of people looked up to him (a lot of people still do). For them to set a good example for others to follow can only be a good thing.

That does not at all negate the importance of other people doing it too.

and i agree with you thomas.
i wasn't negating the importance of what he did ( or how he gave back )
but as i said i think it is almost more important for
regular people to engage themselves, not just the exceptional people.
because the lion's share of humanity are not exceptional, humanity is mostly just regular people.

MattKing · Oct 9, 2014

Einstein was a genius.

And Michelson and Morley, who were no doubt hard working and determined, were brilliant in their "failure".

cliveh · Oct 9, 2014

PKM-25 said:
And you would be wrong. The person without the deeply rooted raw talent will still not achieve what the person with raw talent will, it truly is in them in a manner most can not understand. It's called genius and it absolutely applies to photography as much as any other arts.

What gene contains this deeply rooted raw talent?

Truzi · Oct 9, 2014

In regard to Michelson and Morley, didn't the aether figure in to some of Doppler's early theories?

PKM-25 · Oct 9, 2014

cliveh said:
What gene contains this deeply rooted raw talent?

Not sure, I'm just glad that is the way the world works so we can celebrate the mind blowing talents of those who spared the world the drama of trying to do something other than what they were born to do.

Alan Klein · Oct 9, 2014

"Cox also found that different fields have quite widely varying average IQs for their acknowledged leading geniuses. She gives the following figures (the number in brackets is the number in the sample considered): Philosophers (22) average IQ 173; Scientists (39) 164; Fiction writers (53) 163; Statesmen (43) 159; Musicians (11) 153; Artists (13) 150; Soldiers (27) 133."

Anyone care to take a stab at average IQ for photographers?

Regarding Einstein being "so humble", he was pretty terrible to his family according to "Einstein: His Life and Universe", the fairly recent book by Walter Isaacson. When I read it, I was really very surprised because I previously had a much more benign feeling towards him.

markbarendt · Oct 10, 2014

cliveh said:
What gene contains this deeply rooted raw talent?

Good question.

Mark Minard · Oct 12, 2014

NB23 said:
Einstein had a wife. She helped him, and is responsible for many of "his" discoveries.
It is a well kept secret.

Just as Tesla, humanity's highest genius. Mileva Maric, Nikola Tesla, and a bunch of artists, will never be recognized as the greatest by the mainstream because of all the BS and politics involved.

Being renowned artists involves a lot of BS work unrelated to the arts. And too many con artists make it big, thanks to them playing the game well.

Being a close personal friend of John Szarkowski doesn't hurt either.

frank · Oct 20, 2014

Here's what Jack Kerouac thinks about this:

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/1...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

God given gift or just practice?

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency